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Why Study Resilience?

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Handbook of Resilience in Children

Abstract

The study of resilience traces its roots back a scant 50 years. Early on, the field of study was not extensive and the number of researchers devoting their careers to the examination of this phenomenon was fairly small. The field, as Michael Rutter noted in 1987, reflected not so much a search for factual phenomena but “for the developmental and situational mechanisms involved in protective processes” (p. 2). The interest was and is not just on what factors insulate and protect, but how they went about exerting their influence. Resilience studies were reserved for high-risk populations with a particular focus on those youth demonstrating resilience or the ability to overcome the emotional, developmental, economic, and environmental challenges they faced growing up (Rutter, 1987).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neurology, Learning and Behavior Center, Salt Lake City, UT, 84102, USA

    Sam Goldstein

  2. Department of Psychology, McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School, 60 Oak Knoll Terrace, Needham, MA, 02478, USA

    Robert B. Brooks

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  1. Neurology, Learning and Behavior Center, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

    Sam Goldstein

  2. McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School McLean Hospital, Belmont, Massachusetts, USA

    Robert B. Brooks

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Goldstein, S., Brooks, R.B. (2013). Why Study Resilience?. In: Goldstein, S., Brooks, R. (eds) Handbook of Resilience in Children. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3661-4_1

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