Research has identified factors that place adolescents at risk for negative life outcomes, including behavioral problems. There is widespread agreement on the clusters of risk factors associated with such outcomes, including disruption, abuse, and hardship in the early family environment. Evidence suggests that it is the accumulation of risk which tends to be associated with the most serious later problems. However, not all youth subjected to high levels of risk experience serious effects. Longitudinal studies have clearly demonstrated that many children apparently at risk are in fact resilient.

Resilience can be attributed to protective factors that counteract risk and buffer children in precarious situations. In a study conducted by the authors, adolescents were first identified whose early life was marked by multiple family disadvantages often associated with later delinquency. They then distinguished between those high-risk adolescents who were resilient and those who engaged in serious delinquency, including short term and longer term differences between these groups.