Exploring the Gender Differences in Protective Factors: Implications for Understanding Resiliency

Key findings from the study include: (1) male and female resilient individuals possessed significantly higher levels of several protective factors; (2) males and females relied on different sets of protective factors to remain resilient; and (3) the measure of the accumulation of protective factors was significant and positive for both males and females across each measure of resiliency. Future research is recommended in the exploration of such effects of protective factors to further refine for whom the effects are strongest. Understanding the causes of why individuals desist from or are resilient to delinquency and drug use has become a salient social concern. The majority of research has centered on the effects that protective factors possess in fostering resiliency but that research has not fully explored how the effects of protective factors might vary across gender. This study sought to fill this void by investigating whether the individual and cumulative effects of protective factors were similar or different across males and females. The study used a sample of 711 individuals from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, Child-Mother dataset. Tables, appendix, notes, and references