In blog post four, the concept of resilience was operationalised. This operationalisation was adopted by Robert Kupiecki and Tomasz Chłoń in their publication Towards FIMI Resilience Council in Poland. A Research and Progress Report.
In the blog post, resilience was equated to the experience of psychosocial integration, both on an individual level and on a societal level. The text identified four basic needs that underly psychosocial integration: belonging, autonomy, achievement, and safety, while omitting a potentially fifth - contact with something higher.
For every basic need the post named interventions that could negatively influence their experience: for autonomy, learned helplessness; for belonging, polarisation and alienation; for achievement, relativism and nihilism; and for safety, highlighting real or imagined threats to our physical and psychological health. However, it did not identify interventions that could positively influence these basic needs. In this blog post, I will address this omission by describing at least one positive intervention for each basic need.
Autonomy
The most effective intervention to enhance the experience of autonomy is participation. However, not everything labeled as participation constitutes genuine participation. As discussed in blog post five, Sherry Arnstein’s typology of citizen participation in governmental decision-making ranges from nonparticipation through tokenism to citizen power.
Employing tokenism instead of authentic participation can have a more negative impact than no participation at all (see, for example, Alderson, 2006, regarding children). The key challenge is not merely to listen or appear to listen but to demonstrate that participating voices are taken seriously. Lundy (2005) notes, also regarding children: “one incentive/safeguard is to ensure that children are told how their views were taken into account”.
Thus, a positive intervention to enhance the experience of autonomy is participation in a process where voices are genuinely considered and acted upon.
Belonging
Closeness to another person or group can be measured using the Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) Scale. As was explored in the blog post on evolutionary psychology (blog post forty-four), humans are genetically programmed to prioritize their kin. However, the concept of ‘kin’ is flexible and open to interpretation.
Cialdini (Pre-suasion, 2016) examines ways to include non-family members in the category of ‘kin’. One approach is to emphasize kinship through family-like references for non-family members (e.g., brothers in arms, motherland) or by highlighting localism (geographical proximity). Another method to foster belonging is acting in unison, which reinforces the perception of similarity among individuals and encourages positive mutual assessments.
Henri Tajfel demonstrated that a feeling of to a group can be triggered remarkably easily. Being assigned to a group, even through a random process like a coin flip, is sufficient to evoke a preference for one’s group members. As Van Bavel and Packer note in The Power of Us (2021, pp. 17–18), “It seemed that the mere fact of being categorized as part of one group rather than another was strong enough to link that group membership to a person’s sense of self.”
Thus, a positive intervention to enhance the experience of belonging is trough inclusion in a group, any group, thereby manufacturing a shared identity. To avoid at the same time cultivating out-group biases, groups should be defined as inclusive (e.g., emphasizing shared humanity or superordinate goals).
Achievement
Achievement can be measured in two ways: relative to others and relative to oneself. Measuring achievement relative to others often leads to a zero-sum worldview: my gain is someone else’s loss, and vice versa. This framing undermines the experience of belonging by fostering comparison, rivalry, and disconnection. If we seek to strengthen resilience as a whole, not just one of its parts, we must reject achievement defined in opposition to others and embrace achievement as progress measured against one’s own starting point.
To experience achievement as self-improvement, I must see myself as dynamic and capable of growth. If I consider my abilities fixed and unchangeable, I will avoid challenges that threaten my self-concept and cling to tasks that confirm it. Carol Dweck refers to this as a fixed mindset and contrasts it with a growth mindset: the belief that abilities can be developed through effort, learning, and perseverance. People with a growth mindset embrace challenges, view mistakes as opportunities, and persist in the face of setbacks. That, in essence, is a resilient stance.
While Dweck’s theory has been criticized (e.g., inconsistent replication results and concerns about the long-term impact of intervention), the core message that anyone can improve their abilities remains a compelling entry point for strengthening the experience of achievement.
A follow-up intervention could be to reframe social challenges as opportunities for growth rather than, as FIMI often does, as inevitable vulnerabilities. This would position individuals not as fragile but as capable of adaptation and development.
Thus, a positive intervention to enlarge the experience of achievement is consistently promoting a growth-oriented framing of ability and adversity, both in education and in public discourse.
Safety
Safety is not simply the absence of danger; it is the felt sense of being protected, supported, and emotionally anchored. The most enduring source of this feeling is not external security, but the quality of our closest relationships. A clear example is the secure attachment between a child and caregiver. In developmental psychology, a secure relationship is characterized by trust, open communication, emotional warmth, and consistent support. Children raised in such environments tend to develop higher self-esteem, better emotional regulation, and greater resilience.
What makes these relationships protective is not their perfection but their predictability and responsiveness. A child does not require a flawless parent but one who is reliably available, emotionally attuned, and willing to repair ruptures. This dynamic creates a stable internal model of the world—one in which others can be trusted and one’s own feelings are manageable.
The same applies beyond childhood. In adults, the experience of psychological safety is also shaped by the consistency and trustworthiness of key relationships. Whether in families, teams, or communities, people feel safe when they know what to expect and when they are confident that expressing vulnerability will not be met with punishment or ridicule.
Thus, a positive intervention to enlarge the experience of safety is promoting predictable and responsive communication that avoids being judgmental.
Contact with something higher
There is an ethical reason why the potential fifth element of resilience, contact with something higher, was and is omitted. In my view, this domain should be left alone by social interventions, especially governmental ones. My resistance to it is based on the separation of church and state but is far broader. 'Something higher' can be a religious category, but to me, it encompasses anything that might provide us with internal motivation, be it art, science, or any passion. While I'm okay with providing inspiring examples, I see only downsides to force-feeding internal motivation, as that, to me, equates to coercing a person or a group to internalize what they did not want voluntarily. Even if it would enhance overall resilience, this type of intervention is one we should never consider because it violates the experience of autonomy.
