There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
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.