A misunderstood ally for behaviour management in school communities.
When you first saw the title for this article and read the phrase “mental toughness,” what ideas came to mind? For many, it is locker-room/post-game interview talk. It is a phrase used by high-performing athletes and military personnel. It is the language of the boardroom. While some of these ideas are accurate, mental toughness is a highly valuable concept that is broadly underused in school environments, despite its potential as a means of enhancing student and teacher performance and psychological well-being.
Unfortunately, mental toughness seems to have a bad reputation among educators. We hear the word “toughness” and interpret it to mean that when facing challenges, individuals simply need to “suck it up” and deal with life because life is hard. In actuality, mental toughness is a highly empathetic and positive approach to support all school communities.
Mental toughness is defined as “a personality trait which determines, in large part, how individuals respond to stress, pressure, challenge, and change, irrespective of the situation.”1 This may sound familiar in that it overlaps with our conceptualizations of resiliency, learned optimism, hardiness, and a positive growth mindset. Where it differs is that mental toughness not only encompasses each of these constructs but also addresses why many individuals actively seek out challenges. Mental Toughness broadly examines the following core characteristics:
- Control (Emotional Control – the ability to manage emotions; Life Control – belief in one’s own self-worth/ sense of agency)
- Commitment (Goal Orientation – the ability to set goals and motivation to achieve them; Achievement Orientation – the ability to operationalize and carry out activities to meet goals)
- Challenge (Learning Orientation – the ability to learn from both positive and negative experiences; Risk Orientation – the ability to calculate and take risks)
- Confidence (Confidence in Abilities – belief in one’s own capacity to do challenging things; Interpersonal Confidence – the ability to influence others and feel comfortable with social situations)2
Mental toughness is also a “plastic” concept, suggesting that it can be shaped and molded.3
Mental toughness can be assessed through the use of psychometrically rigorous instruments including the Mental Toughness Questionnaire Plus (MTQ Plus) or the shorter MTQ48. These measures have strong psychometric underpinnings and have been found to be both reliable and valid measures of the construct of mental toughness.4
The study of non-cognitive factors related to performance is a growing area of research, and mental toughness “has been found to be a very useful concept to help explain performance differences in sport and business, as well as showing a significant and positive relationship with mental health and wellbeing.”5 Education, it could be argued, is simply a new domain in which the principles of mental toughness can and should be applied.
Mental toughness does, to an extent, explain why some individuals may view certain behaviours in very different ways. For instance, could the perception of and reaction to bullying be, to an extent, a factor related to mental toughness? A study in the UK found that students who were more likely to report bullying had lower scores on mental toughness. These findings suggest that while students may experience the same behaviours from their peers, some may be more sensitive to what they perceive as bullying behaviour while others with higher scores on measures of mental toughness may be more resilient to such behaviours. They may be less likely to see such behaviour as being bullying or, if they do, feel more in control of options available to them and more empowered to engage positive supports. Additionally, mental toughness has been found to be associated with enhanced prosocial behaviour.6
Mental toughness has also been found to enhance stress resiliency in adolescents, and positive correlations have been found between higher levels of mental toughness and life satisfaction in teens.7 Interestingly, there is a low degree of correlation between parental income/SES and mental toughness, suggesting that mental toughness, unlike high academic achievement and strong test performance, is not a factor associated with income, so mental toughness could be promoted as being truly for everyone, not just those in positions of privilege based on income or status.8 Mental toughness is not only associated with resilience but also healthy risk-taking and the capacity to view challenges as learning opportunities as opposed to threats.9 Not surprisingly, mental toughness is also associated positively with proactive health behaviours such as exercise and positive sleep patterns.10,11
Mental toughness has only recently been an area of research and practice in schools, emerging in the UK and EU, and now becoming more commonly understood in other school communities. It has not yet been applied in any large-scale approaches in Canadian schools.
Canadian psychologists have a unique opportunity to enhance wellness in school communities through the application of mental toughness. It is an approach that is far more an ally than a foe, and hopefully, we can get through the unfortunate misunderstanding associated with the language of “toughness” to appreciate the true value of mental toughness for students and teachers.
References
1 Strycharczyk, D. (2018). What is mental toughness. In D. Strycharczyk & P.J. Clough (Eds.), Developing mental toughness in young people (pp. 3-9). Routledge.
2 Strycharczyk, D. & Clough, P.J. (2018). Developing mental toughness (2nd Edition). Kogan Press.
3 Crust, L. (2008). A review and conceptual re-examination of mental toughness: Implications for future researchers. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(7), 576–583. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.07.005
4 Kawabata, M., Pavey, T. G., & Coulter, T. J. (2020). Evolving the validity of a mental toughness measure: Refined versions of the Mental Toughness Questionnaire-48. Stress and Health, 1532-3005. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.3004
5 McGeown, S.P., St. Clair-Thompson, H., Clough, P.J. (2016). The study of non-cognitive attributes in education: proposing the mental toughness framework. Educational Review, 68(1), 96 -113.
6 Lin, Y., Mutz, J., Clough, P.J., and Papageorgiou, K.A. (2017). Mental toughness and individual differences in learning, educational and work performance, psychological well-being, and personality: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1-15.
7 Gerber, M., Kalak, N., Lemola, S., Clough, P.J., Perry, J.L., Püshe, U.,…Brand, S. (2012). Are adolescents with high mental toughness levels more resilient against stress? Stress and Health, 29(2), 164-171. http://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2447
8 Gerber, M., Brand, S., Feldmeth, A. K., Lang, C., Elliot, C., Holsboer-Trachsler, E., & Püshe, U. (2013). Adolescents with high mental toughness adapt better to perceived stress: A longitudinal study with Swiss vocational students. Personality and Individual Differences, 54(7), 808-814.
9 Crust, L. and Keegan, R. (2010). Mental toughness and attitudes to risk taking. Personality and Individual Differences, 2-5. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.03.026
10 Gerber, M., Kalak, N., Lemola, S., Clough, P.J., Pühse, U., Elliot, C., Holsboer-Trachsler, E. and Brand, S. (2012). Adolescents’ exercise and physical activity are associated with mental toughness, Mental Health and Physical Activity, 5 (1), 35-42, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhpa.2012.02.004
11 Haghighi, M., & Gerber, M. (2019). Does mental toughness buffer the relationship between perceived stress, depression, burnout, anxiety, and sleep? International Journal of Stress Management, 26(3), 297–305. https://doi.org/10.1037/str0000106
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Brent Macdonald
Dr. Brent Macdonald is a registered psychologist in Alberta, PEI, Nova Scotia, and the Northwest Territories, and is a certified teacher with over 25 years’ experience working with individuals with a variety of complex learning differences. He has taught at the junior and senior high level and was the assistant principal at an independent school for students with learning disabilities. He is a sessional instructor in the Departments of Psychology, Continuing Education, and Community, Health & Education at Mount Royal University. He is also an adjunct assistant professor with the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary. Brent has recently published his new book Fall Seven Times, Stand Up Eight: Mental Toughness for Everyone with Kendall-Hunt Publishing, available at https://he.kendallhunt.com/product/fall-seven-times-stand-eight- mental-toughness-everyone
This article is featured in Canadian Teacher Magazine’s Spring 2022 issue.
