Resilience and Adversity

Abstract

Abstract Resilience research involves the study of processes predicting better‐than‐expected adjustment following exposure to adversity, with the central goal of informing effective interventions. This chapter presents a review of accumulated research findings on salient risk‐modifiers across the realms of family, community, and individual characteristics. Cumulatively, findings highlight the power of proximal relationships, particularly with primary caregivers in the family, and with teachers, mentors, and peers in the community. Forces inimical to psychological and physical survival (such as maltreatment and violence) are much more powerful than positive influences (such as affection or support). Children's own “protective attributes” such as self‐efficacy are themselves continually shaped by salient socializing influences. Future research aimed at fostering childhood resilience—and future interventions—must prioritize attention to risk‐modifiers that are broadly deterministic (with large effect sizes, and generative of other assets); to gender‐specific patterns; and to developmental contexts (mores, needs, and existing resources). Understanding the processes underlying salutary salient relationships, and systematically harnessing these in large‐scale, community‐based interventions, is the best hope in maximizing the yield of science on resilience in childhood, adolescence, and subsequently in development.