NCJ Number
151721
Date Published
1994
Length
38 pages
Annotation
Using data from 13,000 adolescents who responded to the University of Minnesota's Adolescent Health Survey, this study explored the issue of resiliency, defined here as the capacity of young people to be emotionally healthy and to avoid destructive behavior even under difficult circumstances. The adolescents were divided by ethnic group (black, American Indian, Asian, Latino, and white).
Abstract
Three outcomes of emotion and behavior were used: emotional stress, suicide risk, and delinquency. The findings showed that youths in all five ethnic groups were vulnerable to emotional stress when three factors were present: boredom, negative feelings about their bodies, and anxiety about violence. Strong family relations reduced emotional stress in all five groups. High emotional stress was the strongest predictor of suicide risk among youth in all ethnic groups. Contributing variables that differed among groups included physical abuse, school performance, and religiosity. Two of the most powerful contributors to lower levels of delinquency were gender and age. In some ethnic groups, parents' substance use and family emotional or mental health problems appeared to contribute to higher rates of delinquency. 4 tables, 7 notes, and 2 appendixes