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The New Yorker
Maria Konnikova

How People Learn to Become Resilient

[konnikova-]

By Maria Konnikova

February 11, 2016

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Perception is key to resilience Do you conceptualize an event as
traumatic or as a chance to learn and growPerception is key to
resilience: Do you conceptualize an event as traumatic, or as a
chance to learn and grow?Illustration by Gizem Vural

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Norman Garmezy, a developmental psychologist and clinician at the
University of Minnesota, met thousands of children in his four
decades of research. But one boy in particular stuck with him. He was
nine years old, with an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Each
day, he would arrive at school with the exact same sandwich: two
slices of bread with nothing in between. At home, there was no other
food available, and no one to make any. Even so, Garmezy would later
recall, the boy wanted to make sure that "no one would feel pity for
him and no one would know the ineptitude of his mother." Each day,
without fail, he would walk in with a smile on his face and a "bread
sandwich" tucked into his bag.

[konnikova-]
Maria Konnikova is the author of "The Confidence Game" and "
Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes."
More:Psychology

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