The differential impact of environment and resilience on youth outcomes.

The potential positive or negative impact of the environment on young people’s wellbeing may vary by a young person’s level of vulnerability and the quality of the environment. To examine this relationship, analysis of a 4-wave (W1–W4) study of 11- to 19-year-old youth (MW1 = 14.0, SDW1 = 1.4) from communities facing heightened challenges in Atlantic Canada (nW1 = 449, nW2 = 256, nW3 = 249, nW4 = 234) used growth curve models to test whether, at different levels of individual vulnerability (depression and conduct problems), the effect of resilience on outcomes (school engagement and risk behaviours) varied by the quality of family, school and community contexts. Results indicate that only youth with lower levels of individual vulnerability benefit from higher resilience, exhibiting more prosocial behaviour. This pattern, however, appears only when these youth reside in communities that pose significant challenges to their psychosocial development. Contrary to expectations, there were no Vulnerability × Resilience × Family or School Environment interactions. This research is the first exploration of differential impact theory. As a complement to the theory of differential susceptibility, the study’s results show the positive and negative influence of young peoples’ diverse social ecologies on the relationship between resilience and behavioural outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)
Source: Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research