Prediction of societal resilience components in a protracted war

The current study examines an existing scale for measuring societal resilience for two objectives: first, to explore and verify, using factor analysis, the classification of the tool into varied factors. Second, to examine which psychological, demographic variables, and political preferences, controlling for each other, significantly predict each factor. The study consisted of 957 adult Hebrew-speaking Israelis sampled using an Internet panel company. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated four distinct factors, each predicted significantly by different scales. The factors are (a) 'Trust in the government and its leader' (five items), (b) 'Social integration' (four items), (c) 'Attachment to the country' (four items), and (d) 'Trust in the state institutions' (two items). Path Analysis indicated that six scales significantly predicted at least one of the four factors (presented by level of factor loading): Trust in the government and its leader was predicted by government support, community resilience, hope, and religiosity. Hope, community resilience, and government support predicted attachment to the country. Hope, government support, a sense of danger, age, and community resilience predicted social integration. Trust in state institutions was predicted by government support, religiosity, community resilience, and age. The article offers possible explanations for these findings.