ABSTRACT
The prototypical studies are Wemer's birth to adulthood survey of economically disadvantaged children on the rural Hawaiian island of Kauai. E. J. Anthony and B. Cohler's overview of longitudinal studies of children whose mothers were schizophrenic or severely depressed; and L. Murphy and A. Moriarty's examination of children growing up in seemingly normal families in a small Midwestern American town. Anthony and Cohler learned that the high-achieving offspring of schizophrenic mothers were not truly invulnerable, that they paid a price for their struggles. The children who coped best shared at least some of the following eight characteristics: positive peer relationships, humor, physical soundness, reflection, goal orientation, good control over feelings, ability to comfort or soothe themselves, and creativity. These major studies of resilience and coping have been instrumental in helping social scientists grasp the many factors involved when some children do well in the face of adversity, and to understand that the children's successes often come with psychological scars.
