Chad Wallens who surveyed middle-class Britons’ beliefs about income, has found that ‘the people who feel richest, and those who feel poorest, actually have almost the same amount of money at their disposal. Their attitudes and behaviour patterns, however, are different from one another.’
A 1995 nationwide survey conducted for the American magazine Adweek found that about half the population counted themselves as optimists, with women slightly more apt than men (53 percent versus 48 percent) to see the sunny side.
One of the best ways to acquire resilience is through experiencing a difficult childhood, trauma or tragedy, the sociologist Steven Stack reports in the Journal of Social Psychology.