Differential Adaptation to Adversity: A Latent Profile Analysis of Youth Engagement With Resilience-Enabling Cultural Resources and Mental Health Outcomes in a Stressed Canadian and South African Community

Abstract

Using person-centered latent profile analyses, this article reports two distinct sub-groups—nominal versus robust cultural allegiance—that characterize how a sample of 14- to 24-year-olds from stressed environments in South Africa ( n = 576, nfemales = 314, nmales = 257) and Canada ( n =V481; nfemales = 270, nmales = 211) engage with four cultural resources (spirituality, religiosity, family tradition, and community tradition). It considers how nominal versus robust cultural allegiance is associated with youths’ self-reported symptoms of depression and conduct disorder, age-group, and gender. In doing so, the article addresses pre-existing resilience studies’ general inattention to patterns of differential adaptation in how specific groups of youth adjust to adversity, and the role of cultural resources in youth mental health. The results draw attention to the importance of understanding resilience in sociocultural context and urge mental health practitioners and other resilience champions to be circumspect in their work with at-risk youth about which cultural resources they leverage for which mental health outcomes.

The association between family adversity and youth mental health outcomes

“…The association was predictable for depression. Like previous cross-sectional South African study results (Theron, Rothmann, Höltge, et al, 2022;Theron, Rothmann, Makhnach, et al, 2022), and in keeping with classic understandings of the protective effects of resilience factors (Masten, 2015), higher levels of individual, relational and contextual resilience factors were associated with a significant decrease in depression. In comparison, there were no protective associations for any resilience factor and conduct disorder.…”

“…The aim of this present study was to examine the longitudinal and cross‐sectional associations between family adversity and conduct problems and family adversity and depression among young people (aged 14–24 at baseline) in two similarly risk‐exposed South African communities. In so doing, we redressed the tendency of pre‐existing South African studies to report only cross‐sectional results (Cameranesi et al, 2022; Theron, Rothmann, Höltge, et al, 2022). We also controlled for salient variables (i.e., perception of neighborhood safety, experience of victimization in the community, age, biological sex, race, income, and school attendance).…”

“…In addition, these communities faced additional stressors (e.g., insufficient housing, crowded living conditions, environmental degradation, and recurrent protests due to delays in service delivery by the government. All of these issues have contributed to social unrest which often sparked lootings and destruction of public property (Theron, Rothmann, Höltge, et al, 2022). The study employed the same data collection instrument across all sites for each phase of the data collection.…”

“…In contrast, Theron, Rothmann, Makhnach, et al (2022) reported that warm caregiving and modest parental monitoring were associated with significantly fewer symptoms of depression and conduct problems. Meanwhile, Theron, Rothmann, Höltge, et al (2022) found that spirituality, religiosity, family tradition, and community tradition were associated with significantly fewer symptoms of depression. No significant association was found for conduct problems.…”

Resilience against radicalization and extremism in schools: Development of a psychometric scale

“…Our study was administered in Norwegian schools located in regions close to the capital. It is important to take the respective context into consideration when studying resilience (see, e.g., Theron et al, 2022 ). Several factors present in the Norwegian context likely had an impact on the findings of this study.…”