Factors and Processes Contributing to Resilience

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I :I I 214 Karol L. Kumpfer The primary implication of resiliency research for prevention programming with high-risk youth isthat prevention programs should focus more directly on the development of the primary resiJient characteristics identificd in this review. These resilient traits can be developed by modifying the external environment to increase proteelive processest employing small challenges, creating opportunities for involvement and the demonstration of competence, and increasing involvement, bonding and attachment to prosocial groups. Interventions should strive to improve the quality of caregiving, teaching parents and youth workers how to increase resiliency characteristics in children, reducing environmental inequities and stressors for children in high-risk or unhealthy environments. Some interventions should work directly with children and youth to increase personal power and resilience. Assessments of personal and academic competence could provide information for tailored resilience interventions, possibly through computer interactive programs or video tapes for caretakers and families. Summary Why is it that we have invested so much into material and scientific technology to build better material goods, yet we know so little about how to build better children? The future success of our country depends on increasing our technology and interest in building better children. For this reason, increased research into this field of resilience and child development is critical to the prevention field and our nation's prosperity and weil being. Promoting resilience in youth holds promise for creating more effective prevention programs. As can be concluded from this extensive review of research, there are no simple formulas for instiUing resilience. Research on resilience, while holding much promise for the alcohol and drug preverition field, is also plagued by a number of definitionaJ issues and research limitations. This review suggests that virtually all aspects of a child's personality and environment as weil as transactional relationships between the child and his/her environment inßuence positive life adaptation. Determining the most salient variables is compJicated by gender, culture, history, local environmental issues and developmental appropriateness. A number of caveats on the quality of the research have been discussed including issues in theoretical paradigmst definitions, measurement, designs and statistical analysis procedures. Because of the increasing willingness to see behaviors of individuals as influenced by dynamic transactions with significant others and the environment, studying the predictors of resilience have become much more complicated. Additional transactional, crosslagged prospectfve studies are needed incJuding multivariate data collec-
Factors and Processes ContributJng to Resilience ZlS tions strategies and advanced statistical methodologies capable of analyzing transactional data. The Resilience Framework is discussed to organized the findings of many cross-sectional and longitudinal resilience studies. This theoretical framework includes six major predictors of resilience: initiating stressors, environmental risk and proteelive mechanisms, personpenvironmental transactional processes, internal individual resiliency factors (spiritual, cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and physical), resiliency processes, and the positive outcome. The results of this review suggest that there are many opportunities or possible targets for increasing resilience in a plannful manner in designing more supportive environments for children living in at-risk families. In order to increase drug prevention effectiveness with high-risk youth, selective and indicated prevention interventions, as recently defined by the Institute of Medicine (Mrazek & Haggerty, 1994), should be designed with a special focus on promoting resilience. The prevention field is not far from this goal. By and large prevention programs currently focus on increasing proteelive processes and factors. They use risk factor assessments primarily to determine high-risk status only. While prevention interventionsoften focus on increasing proteelive and resilience processes, the evaluations often primarily assess reductions in risk factors. While increasing protective factors and resilience theoretically should reduce risk factors, the degree of change in resilience and proteelive processes should also be measured. Empirically tested etiological models including both risk and protective/resilience factors and processes should be developed through prevention studies. Such multivariate studies should increase the field's information about proteelive and resilience building processes and hence, better inform prevention program methodology on ways to increase effectiveness with highprisk youth. References Abelson, W. 0., Zigler, E., & DeBlasi, C. L. (l974). Effects of a four-year follow through program on economicaHy disadvantaged children.Joumal of Educational Psychology, 66. 756- 771 . Anthony, E. J. (1987). Risk, vulnerability and resilience: An overview. ln E. J. Anthony & B. Cohler (Eds.), The in vulnerable child (pp. 3-48). New York: The Guilrord Press. Baldwin, A. L., Baldwin, C. P., Kasser, T., Zax, M., Sameroff, A., & Seifer, R. {1993). Contextual risk and resiliency during late adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 741 - 761. Bandura, A. ( 1977). Self4 efficacy: Toward a unifying lheory of behavior change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215.
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Factors and Processes Contributing to Resilience

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