Resilience and perceived self-efficacy in life skills from early to late adolescence

The present study aimed at verifying the relation between factors of resilience and perceived self-efficacy in life skills, considering a sample of 302 Italian early, middle, and late adolescents, recruited from State Junior and High Schools of the Eastern Sicily, Italy. We used the Perceived Self-efficacy in Life Skills Scales (PSES_PE/NE: Empathic Self-efficacy Scale; PSES_PS: Problem-solving Self-efficacy Scale) and the Resiliency Attitudes and Skills Profile (Italian-RASP) composed of five factors (sense of humour, competence, adaptability, engagement, and control). Results demonstrated that the factors of resilience were strongly (adaptability and engagement) and moderately (sense of humour and competence) related to perceived self-efficacy in the analysed domains; consequently, adolescents who perceived themselves as highly efficient in empathy and in problem-solving were more resilient than those who perceived themselves as lowly efficient in the same domains. Future research should investigate these relations in other life skills expressed by children and adults.