Chandrasekaran Prasanth and Narayanan Annalakshmi
Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Pages:18-43
Adolescents from a low-socioeconomic rural background are confronted with several risk factors that thwart their positive adaptation. Hence, it is crucial not only to understand resilience but also to cultivate it among this target group. The current study aims to evaluate the efficacy of indigenous intervention, Probabilistic Orientation (P.O.) intervention in enhancing resilience among at-risk adolescents. PO, a culturally embedded construct was developed from ancient Tamil Sangam literature. It reflects the typical lifestyle of saints and seers of the Sangam era, and can be seen as a matured personality orientation. PO is considered the ‘inner guard of resilience’ because it provides a unique perspective to understand the life that nurtures resilience. The Youth Survey was administered to 490 students from four government schools in rural areas. The students with high scores on internalizing/externalizing problems from two rural government schools were recruited for investigation. The schools were randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. In total, the sample consisted of 115 adolescents from rural low-socioeconomic background in the age group of 11-15 years (M = 12.66; SD = .81). There were 59 students in the experimental group and 56 students in the control group. A 12-week PO intervention was delivered to the participants in the experimental group. The participants from both experimental and control group were assessed using self-report measures of wisdom, emotion regulation, interpersonal competency, psychological well-being, probabilistic orientation, and psychological resilience at three time points (i.e., pre, post, and follow-up sessions). The data were analyzed using Friedman’s ANOVA. The results indicate that the PO intervention was effective in enhancing the psychological well-being and resilience in the participants. The findings support the need and usefulness of PO intervention for developing resilience and promoting psychological well-being among at-risk adolescents. The implications of the finding for research, practice, and policy are discussed.
Keywords: Probabilistic orientation, resilience, culturally embedded, indigenous
intervention, at-risk adolescents.