Conservation of Resources Theory

The conservation of resources (COR) theory has been studied for over 20 years and has amassed significant research support cross-culturally within the United States and as well as internationally, becoming one of the two leading theories of stress. The COR theory is a motivational theory built on the premise that people strive to preserve, maintain, and acquire resources that protect the self, their significant others, and their tribe. The COR theory offers a comprehensive lens through which to view stress following psychological trauma. The COR theory proposes that psychological stress results when there is a threat to or actual loss of resources or a lack of resource gain following the investment of resources to achieve a goal. The loss of valued resources is especially salient following traumatic stress and serves as a key indicator in the prediction of post-traumatic stress disorder and major depression, because trauma leads to the rapid loss of key material and psychosocial resources.

Early research on the COR theory employed the expertise of numerous community groups to identify 74 resources they believed were the most important to them. This list was adapted into the COR evaluation, an instrument used to quantify resource losses and gains. Resources can be delineated into the broad thematic categories of object resources [Page 145](e.g., car, house), condition resources (e.g., familial relationships, good marriage), personal resources (e.g., self-esteem, self-efficacy), and energy resources (e.g., time, credit, knowledge). It is useful to arrange resources into discrete categories; however, resources are not considered as separate and independent from the social ecology in which individuals are embedded.

Several key principles are posited by the COR theory. The first principle is that resource loss is disproportionately more salient than resource gain. Studies have repeatedly shown that, when considering the effects of loss and gain, loss will have considerably greater impact on people's psychological well-being.

The second principle of the COR theory is that people must invest resources in order to retain resources, protect against resource loss, recover from losses, and gain further resources. This principle suggests that people with greater resources before trauma (i.e., deeper resource reservoirs) are less vulnerable to resource loss and more capable of resource gain. Contrariwise, people who lack resources are more vulnerable to resource loss and less capable of resource gain. This latter group would be more susceptible to longer-term problems with coping and adaption following a traumatic experience. A related corollary to this idea is that loss begets future losses through a process termed a loss spiral. People employ resources to combat initial stress, but in turn, this expenditure of resources may further deplete their resource reservoirs, especially if the duration of the stressor exceeds the capacity to offset losses.

The third principle of the COR theory is paradoxical. Specifically, Principle 3 states that resource gain becomes more salient after experiencing significant loss of resources. For example, for a person who has lost their home in a natural disaster, receiving financial assistance would be more salient than if the same person received a financial windfall without having previously suffered a catastrophic loss of their home.

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