Adolescents' resilience as a self-regulatory process: promising themes for linking intervention with developmental science.
This chapter focuses on the concept of self-regulation as a measure of resilience in children and adolescents. Developmental psychology and neuroscience are converging on the role of attention control as a central ability underlying self-regulation. We collected measures of adolescent attention control from parents and youth, and a measure of self-regulation from teachers. The measures of effortful attention correlated highly with teacher ratings of self-regulation. The composite measure of self-regulation (youth, parent, teacher report) was found to moderate the impact of peer deviance on adolescent antisocial behavior, as well as stress on adolescent depression. These findings suggest that self-regulation is a promising index of adolescent resilience. The construct of self-regulation also provides an excellent target for strategies aimed to improve child and adolescent adjustment in problematic environments and stressful circumstances.
Dishion
Thomas J
TJ
Child and Family Center, University of Oregon, 377 Straub Hall, Eugene, Oregon 97401, USA. tomd@uoregon.edu
Connell
Arin
A
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D041923:Adolescent Development; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D019955:Conduct Disorder; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D012927:Social Control, Informal