The everyday stress resilience hypothesis: Unfolding resilience from a perspective of everyday stress and coping

Abstract

Resilience is often associated with extreme trauma or overcoming extraordinary odds. This way of thinking about resilience leaves most of the ontogenetic picture a mystery. In this chapter, we put forth the Everyday Stress Resilience Hypothesis where resilience is seen as a process of regulating everyday life stressors and is analyzed from a systems perspective. The hypothesis argues that successful regulation accumulates into regulatory resilience which emerges during early development from successful coping with the inherent stress in typical interactions. These quotidian stressful events lead to the activation of behavioral and physiologic systems. Stress that is effectively resolved in the short run and with reiteration over the long term increases children's as well as adults' capacity to cope with more intense stressors. Infants, however, lack the regulatory capacities to take on this task by themselves. Therefore, through communicative and regulatory processes during infant-adult interactions, we demonstrate that the roots of regulatory resilience originate in infants' relationship with their caregivers and that infant reactivity, maternal sensitivity, and the nature of the stressor can help or hinder the growth of resilience.