The Construct of Resilience: A Critical Evaluation and Guidelines for Future Work

• Published in: Child development Vol. 71; no. 3; pp. 543 - 562
• Main Authors: Luthar, Suniya S., Cicchetti, Dante, Becker, Bronwyn
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Boston, USA and Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishers Inc 01.05.2000; Blackwell Publishers; Blackwell; University of Chicago Press for the Society for Research in Child Development, etc; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Adolescents; At Risk Persons; Biological and medical sciences; Child clinical studies; Child development; Child psychology; Child psychopathology; Children; Competence; Definitions; Developmental psychopathology; Empirical evidence; Guidelines; Guidelines as Topic; Humans; Material resilience; Medical sciences; Mental health; Miscellaneous; Mothers; Personality Development; Personality Theories; Prevention. Health policy. Planification; Psychological Constructs; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reliability; Research Methodology; Research Needs; Research Problems; Resilience; Resilience (Personality); Review and Commentary; Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry; Theories; Youths at risk; Human; Concept; Mental health; Social adjustment; Developmental disorder; Review; Trauma; Stress; Resilience; Prevention; Construct validity; Life events; Mental disorder; Child; Public health
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00164

This paper presents a critical appraisal of resilience, a construct connoting the maintenance of positive adaptation by individuals despite experiences of significant adversity. As empirical research on resilience has burgeoned in recent years, criticisms have been levied at work in this area. These critiques have generally focused on ambiguities in definitions and central terminology; heterogeneity in risks experienced and competence achieved by individuals viewed as resilient; instability of the phenomenon of resilience; and concerns regarding the usefulness of resilience as a theoretical construct. We address each identified criticism in turn, proposing solutions for those we view as legitimate and clarifying misunderstandings surrounding those we believe to be less valid. We conclude that work on resilience possesses substantial potential for augmenting the understanding of processes affecting at-risk individuals. Realization of the potential embodied by this construct, however, will remain constrained without continued scientific attention to some of the serious conceptual and methodological pitfalls that have been noted by skeptics and proponents alike.