Table 4.
Studies of resilience across domains
| Authors | Sample | Design | Risk | Protective factors | Outcome | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony (1987) | St. Louis Risk Research Project | Longitudinal (15 years) | Parent with schizophrenia or manic-depression | Child personality traits | Psychological functioning (diagnosis, severity, symptomatology) | "Psychological cost" to resilience |
| Ability to distance from parent | Difficulties in intimate relationships | |||||
| Offspring of parents with schizophrenia or manic-depression | ||||||
| Felt "strangely unsatisfied" | ||||||
| D'Imperio et al. (2000) | N = 185 | Cross-sectional | Stressful events or neighborhood disadvantage | Coping, self-perception | Above median on 2/3 competence factors (antisocial behavior; school grades, behavior, and attendance) | Protective factors didn't differentiate btwn outcomes |
| 7−8th graders | Family cohesion, expressiveness, and conflict | |||||
| from disadvantaged, urban areas | High stress assoc with lower protective factors | |||||
| Extrafamilial support | ||||||
| 18% white | Internalizing symptomatology | Similar rates of internalizing for resilient and maladjusted | ||||
| Farrington et al. (1988a, b) | N = 411 males | Longitudinal (ages 8−32) | Cumulative risk score | N/A | Nine criteria of competent functioning (e.g., successful employment, cohabitation, absence of deviant behavior, etc.) | 50% of "resilient" adolescents convicted of a crime by age 32 |
| Age 32 | ||||||
| Working-class London families | Unconvicted high-risk men often had the worst outcomes | |||||
| Loeber et al. (2007) | N = 503 | Longitudinal (ages 7−20) | Serious persistent delinquency in adolescence | Cognitive abilities | Absence of serious persistent delinquency at follow-up | Desisters had difficulty with anxiety, employment, educational attainment |
| Age 20 | Skin conductance | |||||
| 56.4% African American | Heart rate | |||||
| Community, family, and peer protective factors | ||||||
| Luthar (1991) | N = 144 | Cross-sectional | Stressful life events | IQ | School-based social competence (e.g., teacher and peer ratings, school grades) | Resilient children had high rates of internal distress |
| 9th graders | Social skills | |||||
| 77% minority, inner city, low | Locus of control | Main effects for several protective factors | ||||
| SES | Ego development | Internalizing symptomatology | IQ not protective at highest levels of risk | |||
| Positive life events | ||||||
| Luthar et al. (1993) | N = 138 | Longitudinal (6 mos) | Stressful life events | N/A | School-based social competence (e.g., teacher and peer ratings, school grades) Internalizing/externalizing symptomatology | Children not resilient across domains. Resilient children had high internal distress. |
| 9th graders | ||||||
| 85% minority, inner city, low SES | ||||||
| Luthar (1995) | N = 138 | Longitudinal (6 mos) | Inner city poverty | N/A | School-based social competence (e.g., teacher and peer ratings, school grades) | Not as much cross-domain continuity for inner city kids as found in lower risk samples |
| 9th graders | ||||||
| 84% minority, inner city, low SES | Peer-rated sociability assoc. with lower school functioning, anxiety w/ girls assoc. with academic achievement | |||||
| Internalizing/externalizing symptomatology | ||||||
| Masten et al. (1999) | N = 202 | Longitudinal (ages 7−12 through ages 17−23) | Life events | IQ | Conduct problems | 57% resilient |
| Ages 17−23 | Parenting quality | Academic achievement | Main effects and interactions | |||
| 73% white | Social competence | Resilient group low on internalizing | ||||
| Normative school sample | Psychological well-being | |||||
| Moffitt et al. (2002) | N = 477 males | Longitudinal (age 5−26) | Antisocial behavior in childhood and/or adolescence | N/A | Criminal offending | 25% of adolescent "recoveries" exhibited illegal behavior |
| Age 26 | Personality | |||||
| Predominantly white | Psychopathology | Resilient group high on internalizing, social isolation, etc. | ||||
| Birth cohort from Dunedin, | Personal life | |||||
| NZ | Economic life | |||||
| Radke-Yarrow et al. (1993) | N = 63 | Longitudinal (followed over 10 years) | Severe familial psychopathology, high chronic stress | IQ, favored child status, positive self-perception, good relationships with teachers and peers, coping, physical health, temperament, social support | No psychiatric diagnosis over course of study | 41% resilient |
| Ages 11−13, 15−18 | But 56% resilient children had somatic complaints, low self-confidence, poor coping strategies | |||||
| Predominantly white, middle to upper middle class | ||||||
| Subsample of the NIMH study of offspring of affectively ill and well parents | Main effects for a number of protective factors, particularly those related to social relationships | |||||
| Stouthamer-Loeber et al. (2004) | N = 506 | Longitudinal (ages 13 to 25) | Serious persistent delinquency in adolescence | Low physical punishment | Absence of serious persistent delinquency at follow-up | 40% resilient |
| Age 25 | Employed or in school | However, 56% of those individuals continued to offended at lower rates | ||||
| ∼50% African American | ||||||
| ∼40% on public assistance | ||||||
| Showing difficulties in other domains too | ||||||
| Werner et al. (1982, 1992) | N = 505 | Longitudinal (birth to middle adulthood) | Cumulative risk score | Child protective factors: e.g., temperament, IQ | Delinquency | 26% resilient |
| Predominantly ethnic minority | Mental health problems | Many child and family protective factors | ||||
| 54% poverty | Family protective factors: e.g., parent–child relationship quality, parenting | Judgment of "doing well" across domains | ||||
| 1955 Kauai birth cohort | Rates of somatic & physical complaints 2× higher for "resilient" group |