Human resilience, life adversity, and adaptation to life course transitions from early adulthood to late middle adulthood = 抗逆力，生活逆境，和早期成年到晚期成年的生活適應
Project title
Human resilience, life adversity, and adaptation to life course transitions from early adulthood to late middle adulthood = 抗逆力，生活逆境，和早期成年到晚期成年的生活適應
Principal Investigator
Department
Grant Awarding Body
Research Grants Council
Grant Type
Institutional Development Scheme (IDS) Collaborative Research Grant
Project Code
UGC/IDS(C)15/H02/22
Amount awarded
HK$5,359,056
Funding Year
2022-2023
Duration of the Project
36 months
Status
On-going
Abstract
This proposed project aims at identifying individual, family, organizational, community, and social/cultural factors that contribute to human resilience. It also examines how resilience facilitates adaptation to critical life transitions in the face of adverse childhood experiences and life adversity. Mid-life is an important developmental stage that consists of multiple critical life transitions such as transition from education to work (early adulthood), to marriage/parenthood, (middle adulthood) and to pre-retirement (late-middle adulthood). However, mid-life is usually less studied in comparison to other developmental stages. The present project aims to fill this knowledge gap by focusing on resilience and adaptation to life transitions from early to late middle adulthood. The proposed project is guided by the Integrated Dynamic Socioecological Life Course (IDSEL) model of resilience and adaptation. The IDSEL model is formulated by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from study disciplines in psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and applied data science. The IDSEL model views resilience as a process that changes over a person’s life course because of multiple developmental processes. Resilience is also influenced by individual, family, organization, community, and social/cultural factors. This proposed project consists of three tiers of investigation. Tier 1 investigations will include a 2-wave panel study with three age cohorts: Early (aged 21-26), middle (aged 30-50), and late middle adulthood (aged 55-65). Multilevel factors associated with individual resilience, adverse childhood experiences, current and chronic stress, life adversity, timing of significant life events as well as well-being outcomes will be measured at two time points to capture how resilience facilitates adaptation to critical life transitions. Tier 2 investigations will include four level studies to examine phenomenon that cannot be easily captured by the panel study. These level studies aim to identify biophysiological markers of resilience, explore whether resilience can be transmitted between parents and their children, determine the protective role of resilience in balancing the competing demands of work and family, and examine the relationship between citizen participation and resilience building. Tier 3 investigation will involve the analysis of big public data set such as Gallup, World Values Survey, economic indicators, and environmental data to identify national/community level resilient trajectories before and after collective adversities such as natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic. An advisory panel consisting of experts in relevant study disciplines and stakeholders such as social service providers and representatives from policy institutes will be formed to ensure their voices are incorporated in the project. The research team will meet with the advisory panel at the beginning of the project and at least once a year to discuss the progress. This 3-tier project is the first local research project that focuses on resilience and adaptation from early to late middle adulthood. This project will broaden and deepen the understanding of multilevel determinants of resilience and how resilience contributes to adaptation to critical life transitions in the face of early and current life adversities. Evidence derived from the three tiers of investigations will be synergized and analyzed to fill such knowledge gaps as how factors in different levels interact with each other to influence resilience and adaptation. The composite and level-specific resilience scores derived from the project will serve as viable indicators of resilience for research and policy making. In addition, this project will provide baseline data for subsequent follow-up research to plot the pattern and trajectories of resilience and adaptation over the years for different adult cohorts. The knowledge generated from this proposed project will provide valuable information for designing resilience-building programs. Thus, the project will benefit researchers, professionals (e.g., social workers, teachers, counselors, economists), and policy makers.