[1] The term was popularized in the 1970s and 1980s by psychologist Emmy Werner as she conducted a forty-year-long study of a cohort of Hawaiian children who came from low socioeconomic status backgrounds.
[13] Resilience is the integrated adaptation of physical, mental, and spiritual aspects to circumstances, and a coherent sense of self that is able to maintain normative developmental tasks that occur at various stages of life.
[14] The Children's Institute of the University of Rochester explains that "resilience research is focused on studying those who engage in life with hope and humor despite devastating losses".
[14] Some characteristics associated with psychological resilience include: an easy temperament, good self-esteem, planning skills, and a supportive environment inside and outside of the family.
[17] Most research shows resilience as the result of people being able to interact with their environments and participate in processes that either promote well-being or protect them against the overwhelming influence of relative risk.
These individuals tend to react instinctively rather than respond thoughtfully, clinging to negative emotions such as fear, anger, anxiety, distress, helplessness, and hopelessness.
[31] Alongside such neurotransmitters, stress-induced alterations in brain structures, such as the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus have been linked to mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
[35] Werner noted that of the children who grew up in these detrimental situations, two-thirds exhibited destructive behaviors in their later-teen years, such as chronic unemployment, substance abuse, and out-of-wedlock births (in girls).
On the other hand, some children of ill parents thrived and were competent in academic achievement, which led researchers to make efforts to understand such responses to adversity.
Possibly an individual perseverance trait, conceptually related to persistence and resilience, could also be measured behaviorally by means of arduous, difficult, or otherwise unpleasant tasks.
The study found six main predictors of resilience: positive and proactive personality, experience and learning, sense of control, flexibility and adaptability, balance and perspective, and perceived social support.
[citation needed] One study has found early indications that older adults who have increased levels of psychological resilience have decreased odds of death or inability to walk after recovering from hip fracture surgery.
[62][63] While many competing definitions of social support exist, they tend to concern one's degree of access to, and use of, strong ties to other people who are similar to oneself.
Similarly, an individual can create a financial cushion to help with economic stressors, maintain supportive social networks, and develop emergency response plans.
Tuesday's Children, a family service organization, works to build psychological resilience through programs such as Mentoring and Project Common Bond, an eight-day peace-building and leadership initiative for people aged 15–20, from around the world, who have been directly impacted by terrorism.[78][promotion?]
[79] Another protective factor involves external social support, which helps moderate the negative effects of environmental hazards or stressful situations and guides vulnerable individuals toward optimistic paths.
[86] The United States Army was criticized for promoting spirituality in its Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program as a way to prevent PTSD, due to the lack of conclusive supporting data.
There are a few protective factors of young children that are consistent over differences in culture and stressors (poverty, war, divorce of parents, natural disasters, etc.
The findings of a study conducted on a sample of 226 individuals who had experienced trauma indicate a positive association between resilience and enhanced nonverbal memory, as well as a measure of emotional learning.
The findings of the study indicate that individuals who exhibited resilience demonstrated a lower incidence of depressed and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.
The results indicate that resilience could potentially serve as a substitute measure for emotional learning, a process that is frequently impaired in stress-related mental disorders.
The findings of a study investigating the correlation between resilience and symptom resolution in adolescents and young adults who have experienced sport-related concussions (SRC) indicate that individuals with lower initial resilience ratings tend to exhibit a higher number and severity of post-concussion symptoms (PCSS), elevated levels of anxiety and depression, and a delayed recovery process from SRC.
These include frequent displays of warmth, affection, and emotional support; reasonable expectations for children combined with straightforward, not overly harsh discipline; family routines and celebrations; and the maintenance of common values regarding money and leisure.
[108] According to sociologist Christopher B. Doob, "Poor children growing up in resilient families have received significant support for doing well as they enter the social world—starting in daycare programs and then in schooling.
One reason re-partnering causes additional stress is because of the lack of clarity in roles and relationships; the child may not know how to react and behave with this new quasi-parent figure in their life.
[141] Based on Bandura's social cognitive theory,[142] IRP has six components: self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, optimism, hope, self-esteem, and risk propensity.
[144] The American Psychological Association's Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents,[145] for example, notes that there may be special skills that these young people and families have that help them cope, including the ability to resist racial prejudice.
Disaster recovery research focuses on psychology and social systems but does not adequately address interpersonal networking or relationship formation and maintenance.
[181] The authors assert that policies of resilience[clarification needed] can put the onus of disaster response on individuals rather than publicly coordinated efforts.
Tied to the emergence of neoliberalism, climate change, third-world development, and other discourses, Evans and Reid argue that promoting resilience draws attention away from governmental responsibility and towards self-responsibility and healthy psychological effects such as post-traumatic growth.