Ego-Resiliency as a protective factor in maltreatment (in the AMIS project)

Some children and adolescents show healthy adaptation, despite adverse experiences. Egoresiliency is considered an important personality trait for coping with adversity. This study examines to what extent ego-resiliency fulfils criteria of a promotive factor in the event of maltreatment. We analyzed N = 555 children and adolescents, aged 3 - 16 years (M-Age = 9.89 years; 47,9 % female). 199 participants had a maltreatment history. Teachers reported on ego-resiliency while caregivers reported on internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Ego-resiliency served as a promotive factor both for internalizing and externalizing symptoms. However, in the case of internalizing symptoms, an interaction emerged, whereby ego-resiliency protected children, especially those with maltreatment histories up until middle childhood. However, from adolescence onward, ego-resiliency merely exhibited a compensatory effect. In contrast, for externalizing symptoms ego-resiliency exclusively compensated the effect of maltreatment over the entire age span. Our results indicate that the quality of the promotive function of ego-resiliency may vary with age.