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Part I:
Status of Research

The Issue of Risk

As noted earlier, the study of resilience grew out of research devoted to identifying risk factors, i.e., "those variables that have proven or presumed effects that can directly increase the likelihood of a maladaptive outcome, " or risk processes, i.e., "interactive operations that enhance the potency of a given risk dosage for an individual and thus increase the likelihood of the expression of a bad outcome" (Rolf & Johnson, 1990, p. 387). And these risk factors/ variables/mechanisms/processes are usually either high risk status or exposure to severe adversity or trauma (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998).

In addition to conducting a 30+ year longitudinal study of high-risk children in Kawaii, Hawaii, Werner, dubbed "Mother Resilience" by Garmezy, has worked with children during the Vietnamese and the Indian-Pakistani wars, and with children in Israel, Egypt, and East Africa. She states (1996a) that high-risk status generally includes factors such as:

• Chronic poverty
• Mother with little education
• Moderate to severe perinatal complications
• Developmental delays or irregularities
• Genetic abnormalities
• Parental psychopathology

She lists other sources of stress in children and adolescents as follows:

• Prolonged separation from primary care giver during first year
• Birth of younger siblings within two years after child's birth
• Serious or repeated childhood illnesses
• Chronic parental illness
• Parental mental illness
• Sibling with handicap, learning, or behavior problem
• Chronic family discord
• Father absent
• Loss of job or sporadic unemployment of parents
• Change of residence
• Change of school
• Divorce of parents
• Remarriage and entry of step-parent into household
• Departure or death or older sibling or close friend
• Foster home placement

Masten and Coatsworth (1998) list family violence, war, and death of a parent as significant risk factors, and Fonagy et al. (1994) add nuclear disasters, forest fires, and institutionalization. Murphy and Moriarty (1976) point to constitutional vulnerabilities such as sensory-motor deficits, unusual sensitivities, deviant body morphology, temperamental characteristics, inherent disposition to passivity, low "sending power," incapacity to read caretaker's cues, and insufficient impulse control. Indeed, the conditions and events that pose a threat to one's ability to function competently may be limitless.

Socio-Economic Status: In 1991, Garmezy wrote: "Concern about children's developmental disabilities must recognize the critical role that poverty plays in the maldevelopment of many of the nation's children" (Garmezy, 1991, p. 416). He went on to identify multiple risk factors that put infants born to mothers of low socio-economic status (SES) at risk: maternal undernourishment, heightened stress, poor prenatal care, toxicities, and delivery complications.

More recently, in their study of the impact of chronic exposure to community violence on the social and emotional adjustment of 150 urban African-American fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders, Hill and Madhere (1996) found that "the effects of low family income were far more deleterious than the repetitive trauma of exposure to violence. Low income was more consistently associated with various indices of problems in psychological adjustment than was living in a high-crime area ." The researchers go on to note that "effective social competence in the school setting showed a stronger negative relationship to low income than to exposure to violence. Low income interferes with behaviors such as task orientation, frustration tolerance, and good interpersonal skills, essential for school adjustment.....The children from poorer families exhibit more adjustment problems in the form of confrontational behavior" (p. 39).

Gender Issues: Risk factors differ by gender at different times in one's life. In general, boys are more vulnerable in the first decade of life, whereas girls become more vulnerable in the second decade. During the first decade, boys are more susceptible to prenatal stress, more physically vulnerable as infants, and more emotionally vulnerable. They are more adversely affected by growing up in poverty and by disharmony in the home, and more likely to be sent to institutions if they cannot be kept at home (Werner & Smith, 1982, 1992; Werner, 1987). They have more trouble with social skills in pre-school and kindergarten, especially if they show a combination of shy and aggressive behavior. Until ages 10 or 11, boys are more adversely affected by the absence of their father and a change in schools. From 11 to 18, the absence of their mother,conflict with their father, and school failure are more stressful for boys (Werner and Smith,1992).

In examining the reasons why boys are more vulnerable in the first decade, Rutter (1987) demonstrates that we must understand multiple interactive processes. He looks specifically at why boys exposed to the risk factor of family discord are more likely to develop emotional and behavioral disturbances than are girls in the same families. (His data are from his 4-year longitudinal study of children whose parents are mentally ill.) He notes that boys are more susceptible to physical problems early on, and speculates that they might have "a parallel, biologically determined susceptibility to psychosocial hazards, perhaps mediated in part by the greater incidence of neurodevelopmental impairment in boys" ( p. 320). But he also cites the work of other researchers who have identified environmental differences of girls and boys. For example, parents are more likely to quarrel in front of boys than girls (Hetherington et al., 1982). Moreover, when families break up, boys are more likely than girls to be placed in some form of institutional care (Packman, 1986), and this further increases their risk. Boys are more likely to externalize distress through oppositional behavior, which in turn elicits negative reactions from parents and peers, while girls tend to internalize distress (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1980). Finally,to be more punitive with sons, which leads to escalating negative behavior by the boys.

With regard to birth problems, fewer girls suffer from them, but among those who do, the effects are as severe as they are for boys. Between ages 2 and 10, serious risk factors for girls include death of the mother, long-term absence of the father, and chronic conflict between parents (Werner & Smith, 1992). By and large, however, elementary school girls are able to speak honestly, make their ideas and wishes known, and enjoy their increasing autonomy and mastery.

In the second decade, however, girls become more vulnerable than boys. As they go through adolescence, girls begin to live under the tyranny of the perfect girl who is expected to be always kind and nice. Dependency is rewarded, and it is not considered feminine to be assertive and full of confidence (Gilligan et al., 1990); girls become more subdued and unsure of themselves (Rutter, 1981, 1984). These changes are extremely detrimental to the girl's self-esteem and self-efficacy, and in trying to meet these stereotypic gender expectations, she may make bad judgments which alter her life course in a negative fashion, at least for the foreseeable future. For example, Rutter (1979, 1987) and Werner & Smith (1982, 1992) found that girls who got pregnant and/or married as teenagers, without being able to plan their marriages or pick suitable partners, often ended up with deviant and unsupportive spouses who put them in situations of even greater risk.

These gender specific differences in risk patterns are seen in gifted children as well as in other children. Kline and Short (1991a) found that, as gifted boys matured into adolescents, their feelings of hopefulness and encouragement increased, while the opposite was true for gifted adolescent girls. For such girls, feelings of self-confidence, self-esteem, hopefulness, and encouragement decreased, and they became more perfectionistic and vulnerable as adolescence progressed (Kline & Short, 1991b). Because of these gender differences, some researchers have made the case for separate intervention programs for boys and girls (Turner et al., 1995).

The Cumulative Effects of Risk and Adversity

It stands to reason that the greater the number of adversities, the more at risk a person is for dysfunction. Trauma on top of chronic risk situations such as poverty greatly complicates a person's life. Garmezy (1987) found that, in families with lower SES and fewer protective qualities such as stability, organization, and cohesion, the children were more likely to be exposed to stressful life events and were also less competent and less intellectually able. "The effects of stressful events and these multiple risk factors on children," he says, "appear to be cumulative in terms of reducing qualities of engagement and enhancing disruptiveness" (p. 170).

Rutter and his colleagues (1975) conducted an extensive epidemiological study of the incidence of psychiatric disorder in 10-year old children residing in either the Isle of Wight or an inner borough of London. They identified seven familial risk factors: severe marital distress, low social status, overcrowding or large family size, paternal criminality, maternal psychiatric disorders, and admissions of children into foster home placement. They found that, if only one risk factor were present, the likelihood of the child's having a psychiatric disorder was not significantly greater than that for children whose families were free of any risk factors. But two risk factors produced a 4-fold increase in the likelihood of a psychiatric disorder, and 4 factors increased the risk 10-fold.

Sameroff and his colleagues (1987) looked at the impact of nine risk factors -- i.e, maternal depression, anxiety, external locus of control, low education, unskilled head of household, negative life events, large family size, absence of a husband or partner, and minority race -- on children's intelligence scores at 4 years of age. They found, as had Rutter, that one or two risk factors had little negative effect on the children's intelligence scores, but when a third risk factor was added, the scores dropped dramatically. Similarly, Glantz and Pickens (1992) note that "the greater the number of drug-abuse risk factors, the greater the risk for drug abuse" (p. 9). Radke-Yarrow and Brown (1993) sum up the situation by saying, "the presence of multiple and related risks makes it easier for further trouble to develop and harder for the child to get a positive foothold to reverse the process" (p. 588).

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