Michelle Dumont

Resilience in Adolescents: Protective Role of Social Support, Coping Strategies, Self-Esteem, and Social Activities on Experience of Stress and Depression

In this study, 297 adolescents (141 eighth graders and 156 eleventh graders) were classified into 3 groups created from crossing scores of depressive symptoms and frequency of daily hassles: well adjusted, resilient, and vulnerable. A discriminant function analysis was performed to investigate group differences on self-esteem, social support, different strategies of coping, and different aspects of social life. The analysis revealed that self-esteem, problem-solving coping strategies, and antisocial and illegal activities with peers helped to discriminate groups: Well-adjusted adolescents had higher self-esteem than adolescents in the 2 other groups; in addition, resilient adolescents had higher self-esteem than vulnerable adolescents. For the second significant discriminating variables, antisocial and illegal activities with peers, both resilient and vulnerable adolescents had higher scores than well-adjusted adolescents. Finally, resilient adolescents had higher scores on problem-solving coping strategies than adolescents in the 2 other groups.

Verbal Discussions about Social Problem-Solving between Friends and Non-Friends.

In the field of developmental social psychology there is a consensus concerning the social nature of intelligence. In spite of the important empirical investigations in this field over the last fifteen years, the influence of the quality of a relationship on joint problem-solving and learning is still poorly understood. This explorary study investigated the influence of socio-affective context on the interactive modalities surrounding social problem-solving discussions conducted with 32 dyads of 8-year-old Swiss francophone children. Sociometric interviews with children and teachers were carried out to identify the following naturally-ocurring socio-affective contexts: reciprocal friendship (RF), asymmetrical friendship (AF) and reciprocal absence of friendship (“reciprocal non-friendship” RNF; excluding enemies). Comparisons of verbal exchanges and dyadic performance across the three groups suggests that reciprocal friendship facilitates collaboration and the organization of collective work. Two rival hypotheses opposing socio-affective proximity (reciprocal friendship) and socio-affective distance (asymmetrical friendship and reciprocal absence of friendship) are discussed with respect to the influence of social interactions on social problem-solving.RésuméDans le champ de la psychologie sociale génétique, il existe un consensus sur la nature sociale de l’intelligence. En dépit des nombreux travaux de recherche effectués au cours des quinze dernières années, l’influence de la qualité d’une relation sur la résolution conjointe de problèmes et sur l’apprentissage reste encore méconnue. Cette étude exploratoire a examiné l’influence du contexte socio-affectif sur les modalités interactives autour d’une discussion impliquant un problème social entre enfants âgés de huit ans (N=32 dyades) en provenance de la suisse francophone. Des entrevues sociométriques avec des enfants et des enseignants ont été effectuées afin d’identifier les contextes socio-affectifs suivants: amitié réciproque, amitié asymétrique et absence d’amitié (excluant les ennemis). Si on compare les échanges verbaux et les performances dyadiques entre les trois groupes, les résultats suggèrent que l’amitié réciproque facilite la collaboration et l’organisation collective du travail. Deux hypothèses rivales opposant la proximité socio-affective (amitié réciproque) et la distance socio-affective (amitié asymétrique et absence d’amitié) ont été discutées en fonction de l’influence des interactions sociales sur la résolution d’un problème social.