Characteristics of Resilient Individuals

VI. THE ABILITY AND OPPORTUNITY TO CONTRIBUTE TO OTHERS

In 1963, the object relations theorist, Dr. Donald Winnicott, wrote that "in the developmental process, it was the opportunity to contribute that enabled concern to be within the child’s capacity" (Winnicott, 1965, 77). Since then, considerable research has borne out Winnicott’s theory. For example, the Perry Preschool Project found that inner-city black children who had opportunities to contribute to others as early as ages three and four were half as likely to show problematic behaviors at age 19 as youth who did not have these opportunities (Berruta-Clement, et al., 1984). And Rutter’s classic study of schools which "protected" youth from anti-social behavior demonstrated that mutual helpful exchanges were part of the very fabric of the schools (Rutter, 1979).

Researchers have also linked other traits of resilience -- self- esteem, moral development, political activism, and the ability to create and maintain complex social relationships -- with participation in socially and/or economically useful tasks. (Kurth-Schai, p. 117). Other studies reveal that not participating in such activities is "associated with rigid and simplistic relational strategies, psychological dependence on external sources for personal validation, and the expression of self-destructive and antisocial behaviors including drug abuse, depression, promiscuity, premature parenthood, suicide, and delinquency." "What is clear from research on resilient youth," says Benard, "is the significant role played by the opportunity to experience somewhere in their lives a caring, nurturing environment which encourages their active participation -- i.e., problem-solving, decision-making, planning, goal-setting, helping others -- in meaningful activities" (Benard, 1990).

From time to time, there is a call for a National Youth Service Program. Benard (1990) proceeds to summarize the reasons researchers and policymakers advance in favor of a National Youth Service Program.

1. It promotes healthy psychological development by easing the "transition from the dependency of childhood to the status of an independent adult, able to care for others, to make decisions on one’s own, and to feel a sense of competence functioning in the adult world" (Newman an Rutter, quoted in Lewis, 1988, p.5).

2. It fosters intellectual development by encouraging "the growth of reasoning skills, abstract and hypothetical thought, and the ability to organize diverse sources of information into a constructive problem-solving process" (Lewis, 1988, p.5)

3. It promotes social development by providing "a vehicle for developing a reflective sense of responsibility to the society at large, empathy for the conditions of others, and bonding to and participation in social institutions" (Lewis, 1988, p. 6).

Nowhere is the case for contributing more eloquently stated than in Dr. Joseph Strayhorn’s Central Vignette of Helping:

To begin with, a person has a problem or a need. Another person offers to help the first person, and the first person accepts that help. They devise a way to solve the problem and then implement the plan, facing some unpleasantness if necessary in order to do so. They eventually solve the problem; the helper feels good about having been of use, and the person who has been helped feels grateful about having been assisted. There is an exchange of messages of gratitude and good will between the two.

This vignette is so central partly because so many psychological health skills are modeled in it. The helped person becomes aware of his own feelings, to perceive that a need exists. The helper and the person helped may practice social conversation skills in their encounter of each other. The helper may practice empathic listening, and the person helped may practice verbal communication. The person helped then exhibits appropriate trust and dependency in accepting the aid of the helper. The support that is illustrated, when internalized, is the antidote to the fear of separateness. The two people use problem-solving and decision-making skills to determine the solution to the problem. They may delay gratification and work hard to get the problem solved. Frustration tolerance is often involved when the solution does not come immediately. Discovering a solution may entail taking pleasure from exploration and discovery. The helper feels pleasure from the act of kindness, and the person helped feels pleasure from the kindness of another; the person helped practices communicating approval, and the helper practices enjoying another’s approval; both feel pleasure from their accomplishment of the solution to the problem. The expectation that other people will be kind rather than hostile, which should reasonably be increased by exposure to such experiences, would tend to reduce the fear of social initiations and to increase the ability to be outgoing and confident in interaction. The activity of going about helping people forms a decent answer to the question "What is the purpose of life?" Even the skill of independence can be fostered, if the person helped internalizes some of the problem-solving competencies modeled by the helper and uses them to help himself. In other words, much exposure to this basic "Good Samaritan" vignette, so that it becomes quite prominent in the child’s memory bank, would theoretically tend to increase a wide variety of psychological health skills. For this reason, I have come to the conclusion that providing the sort of experiences that strengthen the child’s skills of enjoying the performance of loving acts is almost always of high priority.
(Strayhorn, 1988, 43-44)