Wellbeing and resilience are vital to developing efficient problem-solving skills, building and maintaining interpersonal relationships and realistic goal setting, all of which greatly enhance an individual’s ability to perform and contribute meaningfully in daily life.
Mental toughness is an overarching term that entails positive psychological resources, which are crucial across a wide range of achievement from learning to academic achievement to wellbeing and in the domain of mental health. In this paper we explored the relations between the concept of MT and individual differences in learning, educational performance and psychological wellbeing
Psychological wellbeing is critical for achievement and for desirable life outcomes in domains including, but not limited to education (Chow, 2007), interpersonal relationships (Pickett-Schenk et al., 2006) and work (Daniels and Harris, 2000). On the opposite side, mental health problems are associated with poor academic performance, attrition, disengagement, suicidal thoughts, and eating disorders (Duane et al., 2003; Kugu et al., 2006). Emotionally, mentally tough individuals are able to maintain greater levels of control and confidence under stressful situations, which can lead to better psychological wellbeing.
Taken together, our findings suggest a ‘mental toughness advantage’ with possible implications for developing interventions to facilitate achievement in education settings.