personality resilience, risk factors, protective factors

The article, in its theoretical conception, discusses the risks that significantly endanger personality resilience. To be able to speak of personality resilience, two factors need to be present: exposure to adverse conditions (a type of risk) and successful adaptation to such conditions. Defining risks can also be sometimes problematic (not only when trying to understand the term of resilience). The risk can be represented by genetic, biological, psychological, environmental and socioeconomic factors. Maladaptation is anticipated as a part of the risk influence. Risks are environmental stressors that increase the likelihood of bad adaptation of a child, or negative consequences in the field of physical and mental health, school performance, and social adjustment. Risks are divided into proximal risk factors (problems in the family, between siblings, between a parent and a child) and distal risk factors (high crime rate in the environment where the individual lives, armed conflict). Opposite to the risks, there are characteristics that may reduce or even eliminate the negative effects of the risk and that also facilitate resilience. These are personality traits, but not counterparts to the factors that weaken personality. They are called protective factors.