Adolescents' Resilience as a Self‐Regulatory Process

The composite measure of self‐regulation (youth, parent, teacher report) was found to moderate the impact of peer deviance on adolescent antisocial behavior, as well as stress on adolescent depression, and suggest that self‐ regulation is a promising index of adolescent resilience.

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the concept of self-regulation as a measure of resilience in children and adolescents. Developmental psychology and neuroscience are converging on the role of attention control as a central ability underlying self-regulation. We collected measures of adolescent attention control from parents and youth, and a measure of self-regulation from teachers. The measures of effortful attention correlated highly with teacher ratings of self-regulation. The composite measure of self-regulation (youth, parent, teacher report) was found to moderate the impact of peer deviance on adolescent antisocial behavior, as well as stress on adolescent depression. These findings suggest that self-regulation is a promising index of adolescent resilience. The construct of self-regulation also provides an excellent target for strategies aimed to improve child and adolescent adjustment in problematic environments and stressful circumstances.