Psychological resilience

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".

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). . Resilience is a two-dimensional construct concerning the exposure of adversity and the positive adjustment outcomes of that adversity (Luther & Cicchetti, 2000). 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 the 9/11 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).

History of Research on Resilience
Emmy Werner was one of the first scientists to use the term resilience in 1970s. 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. 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. Resilient children and their families had traits that made them different from non-resilient children and families. Resilience emerged as a major theoretical and research topic from the studies of children of schizophrenic mothers in the 1980s (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 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).

Expressions 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, et al., 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 an 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 their 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) . 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 et al., 1993). Furthermore, maltreated children are more likely than nonmaltreated children to demonstrate disruptive-aggressive, withdraw, and internalized 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. King, King, Fairbank, Keane, and Adams (1998) studied resilience in Vietnam War Veterans and found social support to be a major factor contributing to resilience. . Schnurr, Lunney, and Sengupta (2004) found that several protective factors among those were the following factors protecting against the development of PTSD: and the following factors protecting among the maintenance of PTSD
 * Japanese-American ethnicity, high school degree or college education, older age at entry to war, higher socioeconomic status and a more positive paternal relationship as premilitary factors
 * Social support at homecoming and current social support as postmilitary factors
 * Native Hawaiian or papanese-American ethnicity and college education as premilitary factors
 * Current social support as postmilitary factor

Resilience and social programs
Head Start was shown to promote resilience. So was the Big Brothers Big Sisters Programme, the Abecedarian Early Intervention Project, , and social programs for youth with emotional or behavioral difficulties

See also: Compensatory Education

Resilience and Emotion
Some studies confirmed the association between positive emotion and resilience (e.g., Ong, Bergeman, Bisconti, & Wallace, 2006 ; Tugade et al., 2004). Examining the role positive emotion plays in resilience, Ong et al. (2006) found that widows with high levels of resilience experience more positive (e.g., peaceful) and negative (e.g., anxious) emotions than those with low levels. The former group shows high emotional complexity which is the capacity to maintain the differentiation of positive and negative emotional states while underlying stress. Ong et al. (2006) further suggest that the adaptive consequence of resilience is a function of an increase in emotional complexity while stress is present. Moreover, high resilient widows showed the likelihood of controlling their positive emotional experiences to recover and bounce back from daily stress. Indeed, positive emotions were found to disrupt the experience of stress and help high resilient individuals to recover efficiently from daily stress (Fredrickson et al., 2003). In this case, some studies argue (e.g., Fredrickson et al., 2003; Tugade et al., 2004) that positive emotion helps resilient people to construct psychological resources that are necessary for coping successfully with significant catastrophe, such as the September 11th attacks. As a result, positive emotion experienced by resilient people functions as a protective factor to moderate the magnitude of adversity to individuals and assists them to cope well in the future (Tugade et al., 2004). In addition to the above findings, a study (Fredrickson et al., 2003) further suggests that positive emotions are active elements within resilience. By examining people’s emotional responses to the September 11th, Fredrickson et al. (2003) suggests that positive emotions are critical elements in resilience and as a mediator that buffer people from depression after the crises. Moreover, high resilient people were more likely to notice positive meanings within the problems they faced (e.g., felt grateful to be alive), endured fewer depressive symptoms, and experienced more positive emotions than low resilient people after terrorism attacks (Fredrickson et al., 2003). Similar results were obtained in another study regarding the effects of 911 attacks on resilient individuals’ healthy adjustment (Bonanno et al., 2007). People with high levels of resilience are likely to show low levels of depression, and less likely to smoke cigarettes or use marijuana (Bonanno et al., 2007). Moreover, low resilient people exhibit the difficulties of regulating negative emotions and demonstrate sensitive reaction to daily stressful life events (e.g., the loss of loved one) (Ong et al., 2006). They are likely to believe that there is no end for the unpleasant experience of daily stressors and may have higher levels of stress. In general, resilient people are believed to possess positive emotions, and such emotions in turn influence their responses to adversity.

Resilient groups
A number of social and ethnic groups have been shown to be resilient. Among those are the children of European Jews in the United States, the children of the Vietnamese boat people in the United States. Middle class families in times of the great depression, children of farmers in times of economical crisis, children of Spanish and Vietnamese immigrants in Germany, adoptive children, who went through trauma and malnutrishion.

The children of poor Vietnamese parents in the U.S.A. and Germany
Nathan Caplan studied the children of poor Vietnamese parents in the US. Most of these parents were refugees. In many cases they did not own anything but the clothes they were wearing when they arrived. Most did not speak English. Half of the parents had less than five years of formal schooling. The refugees studied by Caplan lived in the worst neighborhoods of big cities. Yet their children turned out to be academically more successful than American middle class children.

Why?

Nathan et al. found out the Vietnamese stress the value of education. Parents wanted their children to enjoy a better education than they did themselves. The Vietnamese children spend an average of 3 hours and 10 minutes per day doing their homework and reading for school, while American middle class students just spend an average of 1 hour and 30 minutes per day with these activities.

Nathan Caplan also found out the older siblings were supposed to help their younger siblings. That way the younger ones did not only learn facts but also attitudes towards school and learning from their older siblings. The more siblings a child of Vietnamese parentage has, the more likely is he or she to achieve in school.

Germany is a multi-ethnic society. 8% of the population and 25% of the 15 year olds are born abroad themselves or have as least one parent born abroad. In Germany Vietnamese families started arriving as foreign workers during the 1980s and they are still coming in great numbers to search for a better life. As a rule children of immigrants are not as successful academically as children of native Germans. However it is not true for children of Asian parentage. The Vietnamese are the biggest Asian group in Germany and also one of the poorest ethnic groups. They have been studied a lot, and it has been found (as mentioned before) that Vietnamese parents value education and that Vietnamese students spend a lot more time learning than their German counterparts. , ,

Children of American farmers
Elder and Conger examined data from several Iowa counties to see how the farm crisis of the 1980s and 1990s affected children growing up in rural parts of the state. They found that a great number of children was not affected at all. Most children of farmers grew up to be academically successful and law-abiding.

Elder was able to identify five resource mechanisms:


 * 1. strong intergenerational bounds, joint activity between parents and children
 * 2. being socialized into productive roles in work and social leadership; stressing non-material goals
 * 3. a network of positive engagement in church, school, and community life
 * 4. close ties with grandparents, support from grandparents
 * 5. strong family connections with the community

See also: The Iowa Youth and Families Project

Children in times of the Great Depression
Elder studied the life of men who were children during the Great Depression of 1929-1939 and came to maturity at the outset of World War II. When these children came of age Elder found them to be healthy, law abiding, well adapted and bright.

One stunning finding was that poverty had slight positive effects on children from the middle classes. Once they reached adulthood those men earned a college degree as often as men from nondeprived middle class homes. In later life they did a little better in terms of economic success than their nondeprived middle class peers.

Men of working class background did not do as well as men from middle class homes. However Elder found men from deprived working class families to do no worse than men from nondeprived working class families

Children of poor German college students
Cohen studied the life trajectories of children of poor German college students. Most of their mothers were single mothers; however those children did not spend their whole childhood in poverty. When their mothers graduated from college they were an average of 4.5 years old. By the time those children were teenagers most of their mothers earned more than the German average income.

Cohen found the children to be successful in school. They did do as well as children from never deprived middle class families. Once they reached adulthood they were as likely to attend college as children from never deprived middle class families.

However, Cohen found those men and women to be emotionally more disturbed than children from never deprived middle class families. Women were more likely to give birth out of wedlock than women from nondeprived middle class families. Both sexes were more likely to have a divorce than people from non deprived middle class families

Spaniards in Germany
In the 1970s, Spain was a dictatorship under the rule of Francisco Franco. Many Spaniards fled to Germany in search of a better life. Most of those immigrants were poor and only few were able to speak proper German. Today their children do as well as German children when it comes to educational success and Spaniard grown-ups do as well as German grown-ups when it comes to occupational success. ..

Resilient children
Resilient children have a number of traits which make them different from other children. ,, , , , 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 their future
 * they have a 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.

Young adults 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 people with adversity thriving well and 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 families of non-resilient children, , , , , :


 * 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

Persons who have been called resilient



 * Mario Capecchi (Italian-born American molecular geneticist and a co-winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, At four-and-a-half years old he was left to fend for himself on the streets of northern Italy for the next four years, living in various orphanages and roving through towns with groups of other homeless children)
 * George Washington Carver (American scientist, who discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes. He was born into slavery and had 10 sisters and a brother, all of whom died prematurely. When George was an infant, he, a sister, and his mother were kidnapped by night raiders and sold in Arkansas. He was found, but his mother and sister had already died.)
 * Duy-Loan Le (The first woman to get elected to the rank of Texas Instruments Senior Fellow. She and her siblings and her mother fled to the U.S. in 1975, she knew no English on her arrival)
 * Helen Keller (American author, activist and lecturer, the first deafblind person to graduate from college.)
 * Frank McCourt (an Irish-American teacher and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, grew up in poverty, his father was an alcoholic and deserted the family when McCourt was 11, several of his siblings died)
 * Malachy McCourt (Irish-American actor, writer and politician, brother of Frank McCourt)
 * Dave Pelzer (American author, who claims that he has been severely abused and neglected as a child)