Rapporti ISTISAN 09/49 ISTITUTO SUPERIORE DI SANITÀ Ageing ...

Rapporti ISTISAN 09/49
element common to all the different meanings of this term can be found by the prior assumption
of a possible negative evolution result. In the research of non adaptive outcomes of development
processes the idea of bio-psychological-social risk has been used with reference to all those
situations which regardless of the factors involved, cause compromises in the trend of evolution
lines or an unsuccessful integration between the individual and the environment. In the
investigations (widespread since 1970) on risks in terms of development, it is possible to
distinguish three directions. A first direction tries to identify a direct causal link between a
single risk factor and a result derived from bad adaptation. It implies a deterministic conception
of development and can be referred to the medical model of etiopathogenesis of morbid states.
A second direction is focused on risk measurement and on the identification of psycho-social
risk cumulative indexes, thanks to which it is considered to be possible to define the degree of
danger or risk of a certain situation. Such point of view, even if it admits the idea of a
multifactorial causality in determining negative development outcomes, it does not seem to
suitably consider the process dimension which is implied in an evolution line, in which the
interaction between the existing risks and the available resources becomes important. The third
direction is centred on the analysis of adaptation processes. It takes into account the incidence of
risk factors and protection factors considered as specific resources of single life stories. It tries
to explain the way an individual and his context reciprocally interact in producing forms of
adaptive or disadaptive functioning. From this point of view it is then necessary to consider both
the characteristics of life events and the personal characteristics, because only by evaluating
such characteristics within specific contexts and within a systemic and relational perspective the
function of damage or protection, which they perform on the individual’s life, can be explained.
The idea is that of putting the conception of risk together with that of resilience, intended as
the ability of the individual of being flexible, of carrying out a good adaptation, notwithstanding
difficulties. To resort to the idea of resilience allows explaining individual differences in
responses to negative life events. A well known literature today shows as only a part of the
elderly exposed to risk factors, produces dysfunctional or pathological responses. In this sense,
the problems of risk prediction are strictly linked to that of protection, even if up to date, we
must recognise that the study of protection risks has been quite neglected. It certainly deserves a
greater interest, since it is absolutely necessary to understand what factors, what abilities can be
consolidated, in order to let the elderly be more resistant. The researches made up to now let us
sustain that resilience is not a stable feature of personality (Sroufe & Rutter, 1984) because it
can be found in the different development processes. Protection factors have a less influence
according to a variety of elements among which there are the evolution stage under
consideration, the individual’s sex and the kind of disturbance which they are expected to
contrast. However, even if they are not so many, the studies carried out in this field (Sameroff &
Seifer, 1990) have underlined that protection factors which define resistance, even if they are
classified in different ways, fall within the range of cognitive or social-relational processes.
Even if they are for many aspects different from risk factors, what they have in common with
them, is that they carry out their action within processes which take place in the interaction
between the individual and the environment. The relationship between the individual and the
environment can better be defined in terms of life space, a lewinian conception later taken by
Bronfenbrenner (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), who refers to the whole of personal and environmental
forces involved, influencing the individual’s behaviour. The Bronfenbrenner’s model (defined
person-process-context) is considered the most advanced point reached by researches on risk,
because it efficiently integrates personal characteristics with categories of an environmental
kind, then putting apart the mere overlapping of the psychic with the social dimension. They
cannot be analysed separately, because from their interdependence, positive or negative
evolution outcomes are caused. The ecological approach to human development by
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