Adolescents' Resilience as a Self‐Regulatory Process

Abstract

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.