Abstract
Advances in our understanding of adaptation are rooted in the seminal work of Garmezy, Rutter, Werner, and others who “discovered” a not inconsiderable proportion of children who, thought to be at risk for current and future maladaptation, showed few or no signs of pathology and often exhibited high levels of competence (Garmezy, 1974; Rutter, 1979; Werner & Smith, 1982). Investigating what made a difference in this group of children’s lives led at first to descriptions of correlates of positive development among children living in high-risk contexts and has progressed to complex process models allowing for multiple causal effects across multiple ecologies (Masten, 1999a). Two of the great contributions from this line of work have focused on elucidating the mechanisms thought to underlie both adaptive and maladaptive developmental trajectories under conditions of adversity, as well as advancing the position that studies of positive adaptation and competence should be studied alongside the more dominant models of risk, pathology, and treatment (Garmezy, 1974; Rutter, 1979; Masten, 2001). These advancements in turn have been instrumental in current intervention and prevention practices (Rolf & Johnson, 1999).
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Sesma, A., Mannes, M., Scales, P.C. (2005). Positive Adaptation, Resilience, and the Developmental Asset Framework. In: Goldstein, S., Brooks, R.B. (eds) Handbook of Resilience in Children. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48572-9_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48572-9_17
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