George A. Bonanno

About

Welcome to the Loss, Trauma, and Emotion Lab, headed by Professor George A Bonanno. Our offices are housed in the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. The lab is devoted to the question of how humans cope with loss, potential trauma, and other forms of extreme life events. For the past 25 years, our research has attempted to document the variety of outcomes people show in response to such events as well as the factors that predict these outcomes. We have been especially interested in advancing research and theory about resilience in the face of extreme adversity, and the salutary role played by personality, emotion, and coping and in particular emotional regulation flexibility in moderating how aversive events impact our lives.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Political Science
• Geography
• Artificial Intelligence
• Clinical psychology
• Medicine
• Social psychology
• Computer Science
• History
• Internal medicine

Selected publications

• Psychological adjustment during the global outbreak of COVID-19: A resilience perspective.

  Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy · 2020 · 455 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Amid the global outbreak of COVID-19, resilience is likely to be one of the many possible outcomes. Studies pertaining to resilience following potentially traumatic events including disease outbreak have shown that the vast majority of individuals are resilient, and that outcomes depend on a combination of resilience factors including exposure severity, individual differences, family context, and community characteristics. To better understand psychological dysfunction and resilience during the…

  DOI

• The resilience paradox

  European journal of psychotraumatology · 2021 · 208 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Decades of research have consistently shown that the most common outcome following potential trauma is a stable trajectory of healthy functioning, or resilience. However, attempts to predict resilience reveal a paradox: the correlates of resilient outcomes are generally so modest that it is not possible accurately identify who will be resilient to potential trauma and who not. Commonly used resilience questionnaires essentially ignore this paradox by including only a few presumably key predictor…

  DOI

• Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Among Healthcare Workers During the COVID-19 Outbreak and Relationships With Expressive Flexibility and Context Sensitivity

  Frontiers in Psychology · 2021 · 157 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  This study aimed at investigating depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms among healthcare workers and examine the role of expressive flexibility and context sensitivity as key components of resilience in understanding reported symptoms. We hypothesized a significant and different contribution of resilience components in explaining depression, anxiety, and stress. A total sample of 218 Italian healthcare workers participated in this study through an online survey during the lockdown, consequent…

  DOI

• Emotion regulation and mental health across cultures: a systematic review and meta-analysis

  Nature Human Behaviour · 2025-04-15 · 25 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Moral injury in human rights advocates.

  Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy · 2022 · 9 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  OBJECTIVE: Human rights advocates investigate, document, and combat abuses of individuals and groups around the world and are routinely exposed to events that can be seen as potentially morally injurious. However, few studies have examined the unique risk factors for poor mental health outcomes among this population, and none has explored the impact of moral injury, which is particularly germane given the relevance of this concept arising from the occupational exposure to morally injurious event…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01MH073595

  NIH · $1.5M · 2010

• NIH Grant R29MH057274

  NIH · $555k · 2003

• NIH Grant R01MH091034

  NIH · $2.8M · 2017

Frequent coauthors

• Anthony D. Mancini

  Pace University

  42 shared

• Isaac R. Galatzer‐Levy

  38 shared

• Camille B. Wortman

  34 shared

• John Sonnega

  27 shared

• Roger G. Tweed

  Kwantlen Polytechnic University

  27 shared

• Darrin R. Lehman

  Columbia University

  27 shared

• Deborah Carr

  Center for Innovation

  27 shared

• Mardi J. Horowitz

  21 shared

Labs

• Loss Trauma and Emotion LabPI

  Focuses on how human beings cope with loss, trauma and other forms of extreme adversity, with an emphasis on resilience and the salutary role of flexible coping and emotion regulatory processes.

Education

• Ph.D.

  Teachers College, Columbia University

Awards & honors

• Lifetime achievement awards from the Association for Psychol…
• Lifetime achievement awards from the International Society f…
• Lifetime achievement awards from the International Positive…
• Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study…

Similar researchers at Columbia University

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• Mykelle Colemanh-89
• Douglas Menninh-74