How can the study of physiological reactivity contribute to our understanding of adversity and resilience processes in development? - Full text

Author Dr. Jelena Obradovic, Stanford Project on Adaptation & Resilience in Kids (SPARK), Stanford Univ. School of Education.

"The focus of this article is to present current progress in understanding the interplay among adversity, physiological sensitivity to context, and adaptive functioning, with an emphasis on implications and future directions for resilience researchers. It includes a review of current literature that demonstrates (a) links between various levels of adversity exposure and variability in physiological reactivity, (b) how the interplay between children’s physiological reactivity and different sources of risk and adversity relates to variability in adaptive functioning, and (c) various approaches for capturing a more dynamic nature of physiological reactivity and related processes. Throughout, important conceptual and empirical issues are highlighted."

http://www.stanford.edu/group/sparklab/pdf/Obradovic%20%282012%29%20Physio%20reactivity,%20adversity%20and%20resilience.pdf

Published in Development and Psychopathology / Volume 24 / Issue 02 / May 2012, pp 371-387