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Resilience in psychology is the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe. It is also used to indicate a characteristic of resistance to future negative events. In this sense "resilience" corresponds to cumulative "protective factors" and is used in opposition to cumulative "risk factors". The phrase "risk and resilience"' in this area of study is quite common. Commonly used terms, which are essentially synonymous within psychology are "resilience", "psychological resilience", "emotional resilience", "hardiness", and "resourcefulness". Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Psychological science redirects here. ... a priest wearing a cope The cope is a liturgical vestment, which may be of any liturgical colour, and is like a very long mantle or cloak, fastened at the breast by a clasp. ... In medical terms, stress is the disruption of homeostasis through physical or psychological stimuli. ... For other uses, see Disaster (disambiguation). ...

Definition of Resilience

Resilience is defined as a dynamic process that individuals exhibit positive behavioral adaptation when they encounter significant adversity or trauma (Luther, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000) ^[1]. . Resilience is a two-dimensional construct concerning the exposure of adversity and the positive adjustment outcomes of that adversity (Luther & Cicchetti, 2000) ^[2]. . Adversity refers to any risks associated with negative life conditions that are statistically related to adjustment difficulties, such as poverty, children of schizophrenic mothers, or experiences of 911 attacks. Positive adaptation, on the other hand, is considered in a demonstration of manifested behavior on social competence or success at meeting any particular tasks at a specific life stage, such as the absence of psychiatric distress after the September 11th terrorism attacks on the United States (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000). For other uses, see Adaptation (disambiguation). ... Adversity is defined as a state of misfortune or affliction, or it may be used to describe a calamitous event. ... Trauma can represent: Physical trauma, an often serious and body-altering physical injury, such as the removal of a limb. ... Schizophrenia is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behavior, thinking, and emotion. ... Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that studies and treats mental and emotional disorders (see mental illness). ... September 11 is the 254th day of the year (255th in leap years). ...

History of Research on Resilience

Resilience emerged as a major theoretical and research topic from the studies of children of schizophrenic mothers in the 1980’s (Luthar et al., 2000; Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990). In Masten’s (1989) study, the results showed that children with a schizophrenic parent may not obtain comforting caregiving compared to children with healthy parents, and such situation had an impact on children’s development. However, some children of ill parents thrived well and were competent in academic achievement, and therefore led researchers make efforts to understand such responses to adversity. In the onset of the research on resilience, researchers have been devoted to discovering the protective factors that explain people’s adaptation to adverse conditions, such as maltreatment (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1997), catastrophic life events (Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2003) or urban poverty (Luthar 1999). The focus of empirical work then has been shifted to understand the underlying protective processes. Researchers endeavor to uncover how some factors (e.g., family) may contribute to positive outcomes (Luthar, 1999).
Emmy E. Werner was one of the first scientists to use the term resilience. She studied a cohort of children from Kauai (Hawaiian Islands). Kauai was quite poor and many of the children in the study grew up with alcoholic or mentally ill parents. Many of the parents were also out of work. ^[3] Werner noted that of the children who grew up in these very bad situations, two-thirds exhibited destructive behaviors in their later teen years, such as chronic unemployment, substance abuse, and out-of-wedlock births (in case of teenage-girls). However one-third of these youngsters did not exhibit destructive behaviors. Werner called the latter group resilient ^[4]. Resilient children and their families had traits that made them different from non-resilient children and families.

During the 1990's, enhancing resilience, for example through social support and stress inoculation programs such as outdoor education, became an increasingly sought goal of community intervention efforts. Social Support. ... Outdoor education (also known as adventure education) usually refers to organized learning that takes place in the outdoors. ...

Two important principles that have been discovered in cumulative risk and resilience are those of developmental trajectories and clustering of factors. (Cairns & Cairns, n.d.)^{[citation needed]}.

The Phenomena of Resilience

Resilience can be described by viewing: (1) good outcomes regardless of high-risk status, (2) constant competence under stress, and (3) recovery from trauma (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990). Resilient people are expected to adapt successfully even though they experience risk factors that are against good development. Risk factors are related to poor or negative outcomes. For example, poverty, low socioeconomic status, and mothers with schizophrenia are coupled with lower academic achievement and more emotional or behavioral problems. Risk factors may be cumulative, carrying additive and exponential risks when they co-occur (Masten et al., 1990). When these risk factors happen, according to a study conducted on children (Warner & Smith, 1982), resilient children are capable of resulting in no behavioral problems and developing well. Additionally, they are more active and socially responsive. These positive outcomes are attributed to some protective factors, such as good parenting or positive school experiences. Resilience is also treated as an effective coping mechanism when people are under stress, such as divorce. In this context, resilience is relevant with sustained competence exhibited by individuals who experience challenging conditions. Most research built on this perspective focuses on the children’s response to parents’ divorce in terms of gender. Boys show more conduct problems than do girls; girls obtain more support from mothers and are less exposed to family conflict than boys. Although divorce may some negative impacts on children’s development, it may have children in single households to become more responsible than those in dual-parents households because of helping with chores. Some protective factors attributing to resilient children in single-family, for example, are adults caring for children during or after major stressors (e.g., divorce), or self-efficacy for motivating endeavor at adaptation. Finally, resilience can be viewed as the phenomenon of recovery from a prolonged or severe adversity, or from an immediate danger or stress (Carver & Scheier, 1999; Davidson, 2000). In this case, resilience is not related to vulnerability. People who experience acute trauma, for example, may show extreme anxiety, sleep problems, and intrusive thoughts. Over time, these symptoms decrease and recovery is likely to occur. This realm of research shows that age and the supportive qualities of the family influence the condition of recovery. Buffalo Creek dam disaster, for example, had longer effects on older children than on younger (Gleser et al., 1981, cited in Masten, et al., 1990). Additionally, children with supportive families show fewer symptoms (e.g., dreams of personal death) that Chowchilla incident resulted in than troubled families (Terr, 1983, cited in Masten, et al., 1990).

Factors related to Resilience

Two factors are found to modify the negative effects of adverse life situations. The first factor is vulnerability which includes any indices aggregating the negative effects of difficult circumstances. For example, children with low intelligence are more vulnerable than those with high intelligence when both groups experience severe adversities (Rutter, 2000). Another factor, protective, on the other hand, is related to moderating the negative effects of environmental hazards or a stressful situation in order to direct vulnerable individuals to optimistic paths, such as external social support. More specifically, Werner (1995) distinguished three contexts protective factors existed in: (1) personal attributes, including outgoing, bright, and positive self-concepts; (2) the family, such as having close bonds with at least one family members or a emotionally stable parents; and (3) the community, like receiving support or counsel from peers. Besides the above distinction on resilience, research has also been devoted to discovering the individual differences on resilience. Self-esteem, ego-control, and ego-resiliency are related to behavioral adaptation (Cicchetti et al., 1993). For example, maltreated children who feel good about themselves (e.g., high self-esteem) may process risk situations in a different way by attributing different reasons to the environments they experience, and thereby avoid producing negative internalized self-perceptions. Ego-control is “the threshold or operating characteristics of an individual with regard to the expression or containment (Block & Block, 1980, p.43)” of his or her impulses, feelings, and desires. Ego-resilience refers to “dynamic capacity,……to modify his or her model level of ego-control, in either direction, as a function of the demand characteristics of the environmental context” (Block & Block, 1980, p. 48).^[5].Maltreated children, who experienced some risk factors (e.g., single parenting, limited maternal education, or family unemployment), showed lower ego-resilience and intelligence than nonmaltreated children (Cicchetti, Rogosch, Lynch, & Holt, 1993).^[6].Furthermore, maltreated children are more likely than nonmaltreated children to demonstrate disruptive-aggressive, withdraw, and internalizing behavior problems (Cicchetti et al, 1993). Finally, ego-resiliency, and positive self-esteem were predictors of competent adaptation in the maltreated children (Cicchetti et al, 1993). Demographic information (e.g., gender) and resource (e.g., social support) are also used to predict resilience. In terms of examining people’s adaptation after 911 attacks (Bonanno, Galea Bucciarelli, & Vlahov, 2007), women were associated with less likelihood of resilience than men. Also, individuals who were less involved in affinity groups and organizations showed less resilient.

Resilient children

Resilient children have a number of traits which make them different from other children.^[7], ^[8], ^[9], ^[10], ^{[11] [12]}, ^[13] Among those are:

• the ability to delay gratification
• interest in humans, things and ideas
• interest in school
• resilient children tend to be overachievers. That means they do better in school than their IQs would predict
• they are "easy to guide"
• they have realistic plans for they future
• they have an realistic concept of their abilities; however they were shown to have no greater self-esteem than non-resilient children
• they asked for help, when they needed it
• they were sympathetic towards others
• they were able to verbalize their feelings

Resilient youth

Resilience has two basic sets of skills, inner (intrinsic) and outer (extrinsic). These are somewhat different for children, youth and adults.

For youth they include:

Inner components (intrinsic) or self leadership skills

• Empathy
• Caring
• Equity and social justice
• Safety
• Restraint and resistance skills - setting boundaries
• Planning and decision making - goal setting - problem solving and creativity
• Self efficacy
• Self esteem
• Acceptance
• Cultural awareness
• Spirituality

Outer components (extrinsic) or relationship, community and social skills and expectations

• Caring family
• Family communications
• Family support
• High expectations parents (not expecting perfection but excellence)
• Achievement
• Family role models
• School engagement
• Parental involvement with school
• School work
• High expectations school
• Bonding to school
• School boundaries
• Achievement
• Caring neighbourhood
• Neighbourhood boundaries
• Community values
• Adult relationships
• Positive peer relationships
• Positive peer influence

Both sets contribute to the protective factors that keep us safe. They help us build towards a life filled with safe risks.

Families of resilient children and youth

Families of resilient children and youth have a number of traits, that make them different from their families.^[14], ^[15], ^[16], ^[17], ^{[18] [19]}, ^[20]:

• Parents of resilient children tended to have a better education than parents of non-resilient children
• Mothers of resilient children were older when giving birth
• Their children were more likely to be wanted children
• Resilient children had fewer siblings
• Despite their problems parents of resilient children showed them they cared
• They were more likely to take interest in the education of their children
• They were more likely to be married
• Siblings of resilient children were more likely to be positive role models

The role of social programs

Head Start was shown to promote resilience ^[21]. So was the Big Brothers Big Sisters Programme, the Abecedarian Early Intervention Project^[22], ^[23], and social programs for youth with emotional or behavioral difficulties ^[24] Head Start is a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that focuses on assisting children from low-income families. ... Big Brothers Big Sisters may refer to: Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Big Brothers and Sisters of Canada Category: ... Abecedarian Early Intervention Project was a controlled scientific experiment that was conducted in 1972 in North Carolina, United States, by Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute to study the potential benefits of early childhood education for poor children to enhance school readiness. ...

Involuntary hospitalization

Homelessness is a socio-economic problem that has become increasingly prevalent in the United States over the past decade. In most states, the decision to commit a psychiatric patient to involuntary hospitalization is based on the dangerousness criterion. The inability to care for self can also pose a risk of danger, but the degree of risk and the grounds for commitment are often less clear. Some may consider homelessness itself as prima facie evidence of impaired self-care. Given this view one might predict a greater incidence of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization of the homeless (M. Bierer, unpublished data, 1990). In contrast, adaptation to homeless circumstances can be viewed as a sign of resilience. ^[25]

References

• Benard, Bonnie (2004) Resiliency: What We Have Learned San Francisco, WestEd
• Reivich, Karen, and Shatte, Andrew (2002) The Resilience Factor: 7 Keys to Finding Your Inner Strength and Overcoming Life's Hurdles. Broadway.
• Siebert, Al (2005) The Resiliency Advantage: Master Change, Thrive under Pressure, and Bounce Back from Setbacks ISBN 978-1-57675-329-3. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

1. ^ * Luthar, S. S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). "The construct of resilience: A critical evaluation and guidelines for future work. Child Development, 71(3), 543-562.
2. ^ * Luthar, S. S. & Cicchetti, D. (2000). " The construct of resilience: Implications for interventions and social policies. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 857-885.
3. ^ Werner, Emmy E.: The children of Kauai : a longitudinal study from the prenatal period to age ten, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1971
4. ^ Werner, Emmy E.: Vulnerable but invincible: a longitudinal study of resilient children and youth, New York: McGraw-Hill , 1982
5. ^ Block, J. H., & Block, J. (1980). The role of ego-control and ego-resiliency in the organization of behavior. In W. A. Collins (Ed.), Development of cognition, affect, and social relations: Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 39-101). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
6. ^ * Cicchetti, D., Rogosch, F. A., Lynch, M., & Holt, K. D. (1993). Resilience in maltreated children: Processes leading to adaptive outcome. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 629-647.
7. ^ Haan, N. (1977): Coping and defending: Processes of self-environment organization. New York: Academic Press
8. ^ Goldberg, S. (1977): Social competence in infancy: a model of parent-infant interaction. Merril-Palmer Quarterly, 1977
9. ^ Murphy, L. & Moriarty, A. (1976): Vulnerability, coping and growth from infancy to to adolescence. New Haven, Conn..: Yale University Press
10. ^ Nuechterlein, K. H. (1970): Competent disadvantaged children: A review of research. Thesis: University of Minnesota
11. ^ Garmezy, N. (1974): Children at risk: The search for antecedents of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin 8 und 9
12. ^ Garmezy, N. (1974): The study of competence in children at risk for severe psychopathology. In: E. J. Anthony und C. Koupernik (Hrsg.): The child in his family: Children at psychiatric risk, Vol. III., New York: Wiley
13. ^ Garmezy, N. & Nuechterlein, K. H. (1972): Invulnerable children: The fact and fiction of competence and disadvantage
14. ^ Haan, N. (1977): Coping and defending: Processes of self-environment organization. New York: Academic Press
15. ^ Goldberg, S. (1977): Social competence in infancy: a model of parent-infant interaction. Merril-Palmer Quarterly, 1977
16. ^ Murphy, L. & Moriarty, A. (1976): Vulnerability, coping and growth from infancy to to adolescence. New Haven, Conn..: Yale University Press
17. ^ Nuechterlein, K. H. (1970): Competent disadvantaged children: A review of research. Thesis: University of Minnesota
18. ^ Garmezy, N. (1974): Children at risk: The search for antecedents of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin 8 and 9
19. ^ Garmezy, N. (1974): The study of competence in children at risk for severe psychopathology. In: E. J. Anthony und C. Koupernik (Hrsg.): The child in his family: Children at psychiatric risk, Vol. III., New York: Wiley
20. ^ Garmezy, N. & Nuechterlein, K. H. (1972): Invulnerable children: The fact and fiction of competence and disadvantage
21. ^ E. Werner: The value of applied research for Head Start: A cross-cultural and longitudinal Perspective. In: National Head Start Association Journal of Research and Evaluation, 1997
22. ^ http://www.evidencebasedprograms.org/Default.aspx?tabid=33
23. ^ http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~abc/
24. ^ Sinclair, Mary F., Sandra L. Christenson, and Martha L. Thurow. “Promoting School Completion of Urban Secondary Youth With Emotional or Behavioral Disabilities.” Exceptional Children. Vol. 71, No. 4, 2005, pp. 465-482
25. ^ Michael F. Bierer and George E. Tesar Homelessness and Psychiatric Emergencies, in Hyman and Tesar Manual of Psychiatric Emergencies

See also

• Al Siebert
• Coping
• Emmy Werner
• Emotional intelligence
• Health realization
• Positive psychology
• Resilience
• Risk
• Self-confidence
• Self (psychology)
• Stress management

Dr. Al Siebert is internationally recognized for his research into the inner nature of highly resilient survivors. ... Coping (architecture) consists of the capping or covering of a wall. ... Emmy E. Werner is an American developmental psychologist. ... Emotional Intelligence (EI), often measured as an Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ), describes an ability, capacity, or skill to perceive, assess, and manage the emotions of ones self, of others, and of groups. ... Health Realization is a resiliency approach to personal and community psychology first developed in the 1980s by Roger C. Mills, and George Pransky, and based on ideas and insights these Ph. ... Positive psychology is a relatively young branch of psychology that studies the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. ... For the band, see Resilience (band). ... Lets talk about risk control strategies, anyone with more information and willing to share, please do so. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... The self is a key construct in several schools of psychology. ... A cluttered environment with too many tasks can lead to stress. ...

External links

• What is psychological resilience? - Wilderdom
• Classroom simulation based on Cairns and Cairns's landmark longitudinal study of adolescents (with notes for running the simulation)
• WestEd CHKS Resilience & Youth Development - Resilience Section of WestEd's California Healthy Kids Survey Website
• National Resilence Resource Center, University of Minnesota
• 40 developmental assets - Search Institute
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