An Integrative Developmental Model of Psychological Resilience in the Context of War and Displacement

Background

The idea of resilience in psychology emerged from early observations that children growing up in difficult circumstances (such as poverty, trauma, or family instability) often showed strikingly different outcomes. Whilst some develop mental health and behavioural problems, others manifest remarkable resilience.

What is Resilience?

Trait or Process? The ongoing debate…

Is resilience an inherent quality, or is it something that develops over time? Earlier theories often conceptualised resilience as a fixed characteristic, comparable to confidence or toughness. However, this perspective presents limitations, as it implies stability across contexts and risks attributing responsibility for adaptation solely to the individual, while overlooking environmental influences.

Other views favour a process-oriented framework. From this perspective, resilience is understood as emerging through ongoing interactions between children and their environments, including families, schools, communities, and wider social systems. While individual attributes such as self-esteem and coping skills remain important, they function in conjunction with external supports rather than operating independently.

Context Matters: Systems and environments

Positive adaptation following exposure to adversity is widely regarded as the central component of resilience. However,  its meaning remains subject to variation. Interpretations range from a definition focused on the absence of psychological disorder to broader conceptualisations that emphasise the development and presence of clearly positive behaviours, competencies, and personal strengths (Luthar et al., 2000).

A key insight from current research is that resilience operates across multiple system levels. At the individual level, skills such as emotional regulation and positive coping strategies are associated with better mental health outcomes. Within families, supportive parenting and stable relationships play a major protective role. In communities, schools can provide structure, belonging, and hope for the future, especially for refugee children.

Beyond these immediate environments lie broader social factors, including cultural norms, economic conditions, and governmental policies. For displaced children, factors such as housing stability, access to education, and public attitudes toward refugees significantly influence wellbeing. These interconnected systems demonstrate why resilience cannot be understood by focusing solely on individual characteristics.

Sensitivity, Biology, and Development

Children generally differ in how strongly they respond to both risk and support. An emerging area of research focuses on individual differences in environmental sensitivity – the idea that some individuals are naturally more responsive to their surroundings. Highly sensitive children may be more affected by negative experiences, but they may also benefit more from supportive environments.

Resilience also operates across biological levels, from genetics and brain development to stress-hormone regulation. Chronic adversity can strain these systems, but adaptive biological responses can also help individuals cope. Understanding these multi-level processes highlights how resilience is both psychological and physiological.

An Integrative Model for Resilience in Developmental Psychology

To address longstanding challenges in defining and measuring resilience, researchers have proposed an integrative framework built around five key perspectives. Together, these perspectives provide a comprehensive way to understand how children adapt to adversity across contexts, levels, and time. The proposed model is based on the following:

1. Multiple systems perspective. Children are embedded within interconnected systems.
2. Individual differences in environmental sensitivity. The idea that children vary in how strongly they respond to their surroundings.
3. A multilevel approach to resilience. Resilience operates across multiple levels, from genetics and physiology to behaviour and social functioning.
4. Multidimensional view of outcomes. Resilience does not look the same across all areas of life.
5. Developmental and longitudinal perspective. Resilience is a developmental process that unfolds over time through ongoing interactions between children and their environments.

 

Empirical Support for the Proposed Model

Multisystemic Influences

Evidence strongly supports the view that resilience in refugee children is shaped by multiple interacting systems.

At the individual level, psychological resources such as coping skills and self-regulation are consistently linked to better mental health outcomes. Adaptive coping strategies – including cognitive reframing and seeking social support – are associated with lower post-traumatic stress symptoms, whereas avoidance strategies depend on the nature of adversity; in contexts of extreme and uncontrollable stress, such as war, problem-solving alone may offer limited protection.

Within the family macrosystem, supportive parenting and positive parent-child relationships are among the most robust protective factors. Authoritative parenting styles and perceived parental support are associated with fewer internalising symptoms and better adjustment. Parents also influence resilience indirectly: parental trauma and psychological distress often predict child outcomes, sometimes more strongly than the child’s own experiences.

At the community level, schools play a particularly important protective role. School attendance, positive school experiences, and a sense of belonging are linked to reduced psychological distress and improved self-efficacy. At the broad macrosystem level, cultural identity, religion, social policies, and economic conditions shape resilience indirectly through their effects on families and communities. Additionally, practical ecological factors, such as housing quality, food security, and access to services, significantly influence wellbeing.

Environmental Sensitivity

Research suggests that children differ in how strongly they response to both risk and protective environments. Physiological indicators of sensitivity, such as stress reactivity, have been shown to moderate outcomes: highly sensitive children may experience worse effects under high adversity but benefit more in support conditions. Emerging evidence in refugee populations similarly indicates that sensitivity amplifies the psychological impact of war exposure.

Multilevel Processes

Resilience operates across biological, psychological, and social levels. Studies show heritable influences, neurobiological correlates, and physiological stress responses, such as cortisol regulation, are linked to adaptation. Chronic stress can produce cumulative physiological strain, known as allostatic load, potentially increasing vulnerability. Importantly, these biological processes interact with environmental factors, including parenting and social support.

Multidimensional Outcomes

Resilience is not uniform across life domains. Children may function well academically while experiencing emotional distress, or vice versa. Research shows that resilience rates vary substantially depending on the outcome measured, underscoring the need for multidimensional assessment.

Developmental Change

Finally, resilience is a dynamic developmental process shaped by ongoing interactions between children and their environments. Early experiences can create cascading effects – either strengthening coping capacities or increasing vulnerability over time. Longitudinal research highlights the importance of age, coping development, and cumulative experiences in shaping long-term adaptation.

Overall, empirical evidence supports an integrative, ecological, and developmental understanding of resilience.

Why This Matters: From research to real-world change

Research consistently shows that resilience is a complex, dynamic process shaped by interactions across multiple systems, levels of analysis, and developmental stages. It involves biological, psychological, social, and environmental influences. It also varies across domains of functioning and is moderated by individual differences in environmental sensitivity.

These insights have important implications for both research and practice, particularly for populations exposed to severe adversity, such as refugee children. Resilience cannot be fully understood by focusing on single traits or isolated interventions. Instead, an integrative approach is required, recognising how multiple factors operate together within broader ecological contexts.

In practice, this supports holistic intervention strategies. While certain adversities, such as war exposure, cannot be eliminated, outcomes can be improved by “changing the odds” through strengthening protective environments. Interventions that support family functioning, enhance social support, improve housing stability, and increase access to education can create conditions that facilitate adaptive coping.

At a broader level, resilience-promoting efforts must also address structural influences, including discrimination, social policies, and public attitudes toward refugees. Changes at the societal level can reduce chronic stressors and strengthen protective processes across systems.

Future research should prioritise integrative, longitudinal approaches and greater conceptual clarity in defining and measuring resilience. Overall, the evidence highlights that resilience is not an individual trait but an emergent process shaped by interconnected systems and supportive environments.