Biological psychologist Lianne de Vries has been awarded the Veni grant for her research titled “From Stress to Resilience: Causes and Consequences in Adolescence.” Through her project, she is investigating why some young people recover well from stress, while others develop mental health problems.
In doing so, she focuses on the personal and social factors that help young people feel good and continue to function well.
Stress is a part of life. Stressful experiences can really pile up, especially during adolescence - for example, due to pressure to perform, changes at home, or problems with friends. At the same time, this is the stage of life when mental health issues may first arise. Lianne de Vries studies resilience as the process by which a person adapts to stress and manages to maintain or regain their mental health.
A dynamic process
“Resilience isn’t something you either have or don’t have,” explains De Vries. “Resilience is not a fixed trait, but a dynamic process that can change over time and depending on the situation. How someone recovers from stress depends on both personal characteristics and the social and physical environment. I want to understand what supports recovery, for whom, and at what point.”
Resilience is a complex process that develops both in daily life and over longer periods. To fully understand this process, De Vries combines various types of data from more than 13,000 participants in the Netherlands Twin Registry, including long-term data from questionnaires as well as genetic and family data. In addition, she is collecting new data on the daily lives of young people. Several times a day, the young people fill out short questionnaires on their smartphones about stress, mental health issues, well-being, and factors that can support recovery, such as optimism, social support, sleep, and their living environment.
Personal and social factors among young people
By combining these data, De Vries can investigate how young people respond to stress and recover from it, why this varies among young people, and how resilience develops from childhood into adulthood. She is also investigating which factors contribute to good mental health and well-being at different points in time.
The results can help identify young people who need extra support at an earlier stage. At the same time, the research provides insight into what helps young people develop positively and stay mentally healthy. This allows prevention and support to be better tailored to what a young person needs and at the moment when it makes the most difference. “We can’t prevent stress, but we can better help young people recover from it and strengthen their mental health.”