The document summarizes research on factors related to resilience in children and adolescents. It discusses the history of resilience research and factors studied like risk factors and protective factors. It describes a longitudinal study conducted over 3 years with 1,774 New Zealand adolescents to examine the relationships between resilience, well-being, and positive affect over time using surveys. The study found that well-being predicted increases in resilience, but positive affect did not. Resilience and well-being showed a bidirectional relationship. Mediation analyses found that social resources and reductions in negative attributes mediated the relationships between resilience and well-being.

1. Paul Jose
Victoria Univ. of Wellington
Paper presented at NZPS conference,
Wellington, April 21, 2012

2.  In psychiatric theory and research, there is a
long-standing interest in identifying risk
factors in development
 Risk factors are influences that heighten the odds
of greater maladaptation, i.e., an alcoholic
parent is predictive of poorer outcomes in
children
 Similarly,research has tried to identify
factors that protect against maladaptation
 Resilience factors lessen the odds of greater
maladaptation, i.e., social resources like intact
families as well as internal characteristics such
as a sense of humour

3.  Norman Garmezy originated the study of
resilient children in the early 1970s, using an
epidemiological approach: who gets sick and
who doesn’t?
 Emmy Werner in the early 1980s wrote a
book on poor children growing up in
Kauai, an island in Hawai’i. Some children at
risk did not do poorly = “resilient children”.
 Anthony, E.J. (1987). Risk, vulnerability, and
resilience: An overview. In E.J. Anthony &
B.J. Cohler (Eds.), The invulnerable child
(pp.3-48). New York: Guilford Press.

4.  Initialformulations of resilience located the
“good stuff” in the person, i.e., “the
invulnerable child”
 But following Bronfenbrenner’s emphasis on
the interactions between person and their
multiple contexts, resilience research has
evolved to be more process-oriented
 Today, we believe that resilient children and
adolescents possess certain qualities that
allow them to interact with their contexts
well

5.  Resilience is imputed when one sees:
 good outcomes regardless of high-risk status,
 constant competence under stress,
 recovery from trauma, and
 using challenges for growth that makes future
hardships more tolerable (post-traumatic growth).
 The emphasis, you will note, is on doing well in
the face of hardship.
 Growing consensus that resilient individuals are
successful because of:
 Adaptive coping strategies and
 Social resources

6.  Previously it was thought that resilience was
primarily genetically based, but research
does not support the view that it is mostly
determined in this way;
 And Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory
would argue that social influences should
account for a significant proportion.
 Focus of the present study: Does a sense of
greater well-being or positive affect foster or
increase resilient tendencies one year later?
 B. Fredrickson’s “broaden-and-build” theory
states that higher positive affect fosters great
competence and striving (resilience?)

7. Imeasured three constructs that I thought
would be related to each other over time:
 Resilient cognitions about the self;
 Positive affect; and
 Well-being (aspirations; pos relations with
others; and confidence)
Isought to test the particular process model
presented on the next page

8. Well- Resilient
being cognitions
Positive
Affect

9.  We proposed that positive affect and positive
adjustment would lead to greater resilience
over time
 But these three variables are likely to be
related to each other in interesting and
complicated ways. We also thought it
possible that:
 Resilience Well-being
 Resilience Positive affect
 Secondary hypothesis: there may be
supportive bi-directional relationships among
these three variables over time

10.  Jan Pryor and I received financial support
from the FRST Foundation to study
adolescent development over three years
 Focus of this research endeavour was to
study the function of social connectedness in
promoting better adjustment in adolescents
 It was a large scale longitudinal (once a year
for three years) study largely representative
of NZ youth

11.  1,774 New Zealand adolescents (10-15 years
at Y1) participated in a self-report study
annually for three years
 Recruited from about 100 schools scattered
around the North Island
 Almost a nationally representative sample:
fewer rural kids, overrepresentation of
Maori, no South Island participants
 All measures yielded Cronbach’s alphas > .80.

12.  Wagnild and Young’s Resilience Scale (1993). The
four items were:
 “I keep myself busy and interested in things”,
 “I try not to take things too seriously”,
 “My belief in myself gets me through hard times” and
 “I can find a way to fix my problems”.
 Well-being consisted of three subscales of 3 or 4
items each adapted from the Ryff Wellbeing
Scales (Ryff & Keyes, 1995):
 aspirations,
 positive relations with others, and
 confidence.

13.  Positive
Affect: 3 items from the CES-D
(Radloff, 1977):
I enjoyed life.
 I was happy.
 I felt hopeful about the future.

14.  Lap-top computers were used to present the
questionnaires in an interactive fashion to
adolescents
 Quiet room at school, up to 30 computers
 Teacher and researcher always present
 About 350 questions were asked but we used
skips and branches to minimise the amount
of time involved

15. A repeated-measures MANOVA showed that:
 Positive affect and well-being decreased slightly
over 3 years, but
 Resilience did not change much
 Theseresults are generally supportive of the
views that:
 resilience is trait-like, and
 that adolescent positive affect decreases during
middle adolescence
 Butthis doesn’t tell us how these variables
are related to each other

16. Positive Positive Positive
Affect Affect Affect T3
T1 T2
Well-being Well-being Well-being
T1 T2 T3
Resilience Resilience Resilience
T1 T2 T3

17. Positive Positive Positive
Affect Affect Affect
T1 T2 T3
.16*** .13****
Well-being Well-being Well-being
T1 T2 T3
.20***
.24***
.15*** .07*
Resilience Resilience Resilience
T1 T2 T3

18.  Well-being predicted increases in resilience
over time, however
 Positive affect did not predict increases in
resilience over time
 Resilience and well-being manifested a bi-
directional relationship with each other over
time

19.  Itseems that we obtained some support for
Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory in
that an adolescent with higher well-being at
a given point in time is likely to report higher
resilience at a later point in time
(residualised: change in resilience).
 Positive affect (being happy) seems to be an
outcome, not a driver of later states
 Resilience fosters greater well-being, and
well-being in turn fosters greater resilience

20.  SEM is a good method for examining
mediational relationships across time
 Did we find any mediational relationships?
Positive Positive Positive
Affect T1 Affect T2 Affect T3
.16*** .13****
Well-being Well-being Well-being
T1 T2 T3
.20*** .24***
.15*** .07*
Resilience Resilience Resilience
T1 T2 T3

21.  We would like to know how well-being leads
to greater resilience: what is the
“mechanism”?
 And we would like to know how resilience
leads to greater well-being

22. Well-being
T1
??????
T2
One can examine these relationships in SEM
(longitudinal mediation), but there is another Resilience
technique which I think is more flexible and powerful: T3
mediation with latent growth curve modeling (LGCMs),
described by David MacKinnon.

24. Resilience Well-
slope being
slope
Mediator
slope
“Slope” refers to change in the variable over the three times
of measurement.

25.  Two basic relationships, given our previous
findings, were probed:
 Well-being Resilience, and
 Resilience Well-being
Iexamined numerous potential mediators,
and some proved to yield significant
mediation and some did not

26. IV Mediator Indirect/ DV
Direct
ratio
Reliable Alliance (+) .54**
Guidance (+) .38**
Resilience Reassurance of .65** Well-being
Worth (+)
Lack of self- .09*
confidence (-)
Avoidance (-) .30**

27. IV Mediator Indirect/ DV
Direct
ratio
Lack of self- .07*
confidence (-)
Well-being Rumination (-) .30** Resilience
Avoidance (-) .79**

28.  Resilience seems to lead to both increased
positive attributes AND decreased negative
attributes, which in turn lead to greater well-
being
 Higher social provisions (Cutrona & Russell)
 Lower lack of self-confidence, avoidance
 Well-being seems to lead to greater resilience
only through reductions in negative dynamics
 Lower lack of self-confidence, rumination, and
avoidance
 The bi-directional relationship may be due to the
reduction in negative processes

29.  We need to separate the hedonic (being
happy) from the eudaimonic (meaning of
life) better so that we can identify how each
contributes to resilience separately
 How do these variables relate to coping
strategies (problem-solving, reframing, etc.),
social support, and social connectedness?
 We intend to investigate moderators as well:
age, gender, ethnicity, rural/urban, etc.

30.  Resilience may be at least partly promoted
by experiencing well-being
 Resilience and well-being seem to support
each other
 Perhaps we can teach strategies that will
support or promote resilience and well-
being?

31.  For more information, please write
me at:
paul.jose@vuw.ac.nz