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Competence, Resilience, and Development 35to drive, move into highly demanding high school classes, live away from homefor the first time, or learn to handle new sexual feelings.Competence and PsychopathologyThe study of competence and psychopathology has been connected in many ways,historically, theoretically, and empirically. These connections have great significancefor interventions to promote mental health before, during, and subsequentto adolescence, as well as for the basic science of how mental health and illnessdevelop (Masten, 2004; Masten et al., 2006; Steinberg et al., 2006). A detaileddiscussion of these connections is well beyond the scope of this chapter (see Mastenet al., 2006); however, it is important to consider briefly how competence andpsychopathology may be related and how attention to these possibilities couldilluminate key issues for prevention and policy design.Evaluating competence and symptoms are both ways of judging adaptation, withoverlapping histories in ancient medicine and philosophy, as well as more recentshared histories in the study of psychiatry, psychology, and related social sciencesand neurosciences (Masten & Curtis, 2000; Masten et al., 2006). Some of theconnections observed between competence and symptoms in research reflect artifactsof overlapping concepts, measurement, or informants with response bias,but some of the links are likely to reflect true causal connections. Causal modelshave taken several basic forms—common cause models, symptoms of disordersundermining competence, failures in major competence domains leading to symptoms—andmore complex combinations and indirect variations of these basicmodels (see Masten et al., 2006, for a more detailed discussion of these models).A few examples can illustrate some of the intriguing possibilities now being consideredin research on adolescent psychopathology.Common Cause ModelsCommon antecedents, risk factors, genetically influenced vulnerabilities, andother shared mediating influences could account for the co-occurrence of competenceproblems and psychopathology in the same adolescent. Parental neglector maltreatment, bad neighborhoods, negative emotionality, poor impulse control,poor attention control, and stressful life events have been implicated inmultiple problems of adolescence, including depression, antisocial behavior,substance abuse, anxiety disorders, as well as difficulties in social and academiccompetence (Evans et al., 2005; Masten & Gewirtz, 2006; Masten et al., 2006;see also multiple chapters in this volume). The pathways to these problems areundoubtedly complex and highly variable from person to person, but it is certainlypossible that multiple difficulties arise in the same individuals and acrossindividuals from dysfunctions or breakdowns in fundamental adaptive systems.