Stress, competence, and development: continuities in the study of schizophrenic adults, children vulnerable to psychopathology, and the search for stress-resistant children.

The evolution of an ongoing research study into stress-resistant factors in children is traced from the early work on adult schizophrenia through the identification of risk factors in children vulnerable to stress. Future directions for the research are explored, including the necessity for defenses against possible politicization of the findings.