Stability and persistence of resilience in early and mid-adult life

Lead researcher - Dr Amanda Sacker, UCL
Co-investigators - Professor Ingrid Schoon, City University, Professor Dieter Wolke, Jacobs Foundation,Research Assistant - Dr Noriko Cable, UCL, Richard Shaw, UCL

The project will address gaps in existing knowledge about long-term outcomes for resilient and vulnerable adolescents and the processes involved. The proposed work arises out of questions which emerged at the end of an ESRC project in which different outcomes were found at different stages in the life-course dependent on the form and timing of resilience to social disadvantage. Resilience in adolescence not only led to an increased likelihood of escape from social and economic disadvantage, and to a lower risk for psychological morbidity in adulthood, but was also protective in the context of continuing disadvantage.

It has been suggested that the social gradient in mental health arises because young people from deprived socio-economic backgrounds encounter a greater number of early life transitions which inevitably incur stresses for which there is insufficient time to adapt. We add to this the suggestion that adolescent resilience delays the timing of life transitions such as marriage and parenthood to a more 'age-appropriate' time and may also provide individuals with the resources to handle the stresses involved in these transitions.

The aims of the study are to examine the effects of social and biological risk on capabilities in adolescence; to assess the extent to which different forms of resilience in adolescence promote positive adaptation in adulthood; to explore how different forms of competence interact with each other to promote positive outcomes; to examine the specificity or universality of the findings; and to investigate the processes mediating the relationship between resilience in adolescence and successful functioning in adulthood.

This page last modified 30 November, 2007 by Administrator