The moderating effect of personality between childhood adverse events and adolescent resilience

Abstract

For this topic we need to believe in the words of J.J. Rousseau who said of adolescence that it was "the second birth." I can consider that this period represents for the human being a bridge between the past and the future. If in childhood many events in people's lives happened without their consent or will, now in adolescence is the time when everyone can challenge, rectify or finish the trajectory of life. The challenge is to become aware and take responsibility that their actions as future adults will have an impact on both themselves and those around them. Childhood experiences are still fresh in the memory of teenagers, it is known that we cannot go back in time to change something and at the same time we know that we cannot skip the present. The main purpose of this paper is to answer the question we have heard or asked at least once in our lives: why do certain individuals with an adverse past and high risk factors seem to succeed while others fail? During this paper we will turn our attention to solutions that will help us identify the problems faced by adolescents in childhood, the current resources available and how to access them. The aim of the research is to test the moderating role of Big-five personality factors (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, intellect) between adverse childhood experiences and resilience strategies. For this research we will apply 3 questionnaires to calculate scores on adverse experiences, resilience and personality on a sample of approximately 400 high school students aged 14 to 18, both girls and boys. Being a quasi-experimental research, the causal relationship between the independent and the dependent variable cannot be proved. Another limitation of the present study is the biases of the participants (participant bias) in which they could have responded favorably, believing that this would help the research. Also due to the sensitive nature of the items in the questionnaire, the participants' answers may not be sincere.