Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-hw7sx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T03:01:48.230Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Social ecological complexity and resilience processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2015

Michael Ungar
Michael Ungar*
Affiliation:
Resilience Research Centre, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4R2, Canada. michael.ungar@dal.ca www.resilienceresearch.org
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A social ecological model of resilience avoids the reductionism of simple explanations of the complex and multisystemic processes associated with well-being in contexts of adversity. There is evidence that when stressors are abnormally high, environmental factors account for more of an individual's resilience than do individual traits or cognitions. In this commentary, a social ecological model of resilience is discussed.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 38 , 2015 , e124
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abramson, D. M., Park, Y. S., Stehling-Ariza, T. & Redlener, I. (2010) Children as bellwethers of recovery: Dysfunctional systems and the effects of parents, households, and neighborhoods on serious emotional disturbance in children after Hurricane Katrina. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness 4(Suppl. 1):S17–27.Google Scholar
APA Task Force on Resilience and Strength in Black Children and Adolescents. (2008) Resilience in African American children and adolescents: A vision for optimal development. American Psychological Association. Available at http://www.apa.org/pi/families/resources/resiliencerpt.pdf.Google Scholar
Beckett, C., Maughan, B., Rutter, M., Castle, J., Colvert, E., Groothues, C., Kreppner, J., Stevens, S., O'connor, T. G. & Sonuga-Barke, E. J. S. (2006) Do the effects of early severe deprivation on cognition persist into early adolescence? Findings from the English and Romanian Adoptees Study. Child Development 77(3):696–711.Google Scholar
Brame, B., Nagin, D. S. & Tremblay, R. E. (2001) Developmental trajectories of physical aggression from school entry to late adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 42:503–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicchetti, D. (2010) A developmental psychopathology perspective on bipolar disorder. In: Understanding bipolar disorder: A developmental psychopathology perspective, eds. Miklowitz, D. & Cicchetti, D., pp. 1–34. Guilford.Google Scholar
Hopkins, K. D., Taylor, C. L., D'Antoine, H. & Zubrick, S. R. (2012) Predictors of resilient psychosocial functioning in Western Australian Aboriginal young people exposed to high family-level risk. In: The social ecology of resilience: A handbook of theory and practice, ed. Ungar, M., pp. 425–40. Springer.Google Scholar
Jaffee, S. R., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Polo-Tomas, M. & Taylor, A. (2007) Individual, family, and neighborhood factors distinguish resilient from non-resilient maltreated children: A cumulative stressors model. Child Abuse and Neglect 31(3):231–53.Google Scholar
Kassis, W., Artz, S. & Moldenhauer, S. (2013) Laying down the family burden: A cross-cultural analysis of resilience in the midst of family violence. Child and Youth Services 34:37–63.Google Scholar
Masten, A. S. (2011) Resilience in children threatened by extreme adversity: Frameworks for research, practice, and translational synergy. Development and Psychopathology 23(2):493–506.Google Scholar
Obradović, J., Bush, N. R., Stamperdahl, J., Adler, N. E. & Boyce, W. T. (2010) Biological sensitivity to context: The interactive effects of stress reactivity and family adversity on socioemotional behavior and school readiness. Child Development 81(1):270–89.Google Scholar
Panter-Brick, C. & Eggerman, M. (2012) Understanding culture, resilience, and mental health: The production of hope. In: The social ecology of resilience: A handbook of theory and practice, ed. Ungar, M., pp. 369–86. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, B. D. (2009) Examining child maltreatment through a neurodevelopmental lens: Clinical application of the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. Journal of Loss and Trauma 14(4):240–55.Google Scholar
Sanders, J., Munford, R., Liebenberg, L. & Ungar, M. (2014) Consistent service quality: The connection between service quality, risk, resilience and outcomes for vulnerable youth clients of multiple services. Child Abuse and Neglect 38(4):687–97.Google Scholar
Seligman, M. E. P. (2011) Flourish. Free Press.Google Scholar
Theron, L., Liebenberg, L. & Ungar, M., eds. (2015) Youth resilience and culture. Springer.Google Scholar
Tol, W. A., Barbui, C., Galappatti, A., Silove, D., Betancourt, T. S., Souza, R., Golaz, A., & van Ommeren, M. (2011) Mental health and psychosocial support in humanitarian settings: Linking practice and research. Lancet 378:1581–91.Google Scholar
Ungar, M. (2011) The social ecology of resilience: Addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 81(1):1–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ungar, M. (2015) Practitioner review: Diagnosing childhood resilience: A systemic approach to the diagnosis of adaptation in adverse social ecologies. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 56(1):4–17.Google Scholar
Ungar, M., Liebenberg, L., Armstrong, M., Dudding, P. & van de Vijver, F. J. R. (2012) Patterns of service use, individual and contextual risk factors, and resilience among adolescents using multiple psychosocial services. Child Abuse and Neglect 37(2–3):150–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed