Resilience originally emerged as a concept in the literature within psychopathology in the early 1970s. Then, resilience was conceptualized as a stable personality characteristic. However, more research has shifted the conceptualization of resilience. It is because of such research that resilience is now thought of as a ongoing, dynamic, process between oneself and one’s (, Sawyer, & Brown, 2006; Luthar & Zelazo, 2003; Vanderbilt-Adriance & Shaw, 2008).
Invulnerability and invincibility were being used to describe the process of adaptation following adverse circumstances prior to the conceptualization of resilience (Anthony, 1974; Earlvolino-Ramirez, 2007). Invulnerability was used to describe an aspect of an individual’s makeup that was static and “absolute” (Luthar et al., 2000, p. 544). Researchers expanded their investigations into the concept of resilience after research provided support for the notion that adaptive reorientation despite hardship incurred a developmental progression (Luthar et al., 2000).
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Two commonly used definition of resilience found in research is “the ability to adapt successfully despite adversity” (Garmezy & Masten, 1991, p. 15) and “the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances” (Matsen, 1990, p. 426). One observation of why resilience may be difficult to be defined reflects the notion that resilience may be a combination of complex processes rather than a single construct (Gordon & Song,