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Self-reflection is widely regarded as marking an unfolding developmental competence emerging in adolescence (Bell, Wieling, and Watson, 2004). Increased self-awareness in adolescence (Damon and Hart, 1988), resulting in part from developing cognitive capacities (Keating, 1990), makes self-reflection possible. We are aware of only one other research program (Fonagy et al., 1994) besides ours (Hauser, 1999; Hauser, Allen, and Golden, 2006) engaged in systematic research exploring whether and how self-reflection, as expressed in semistructured research interviews, predicts subsequent resilience.
We define self-reflection as the metacognitive processes (Flavell, 2003) supporting self-exploration for the purpose of attaining self-knowledge, motivated by self-curiosity (Trapnell and Campbell, 1999). In our view, self-reflection includes objective and subjective self-inquiry; thus, the “self being reflected on encompasses the “me” and “I” self (James, 1890). Although it is thought to develop originally in primary attachment relationships (Siegel, 2004), self-reflection may also appear secondarily and may enlarge in the context of ongoing intimate relationships throughout the life span.
The human capacity for “self-reflective consciousness,” considered “the most precious achievement of our species” (Csikszentmihalyi, 2006, p. 9), is linked to the evolution of human brain structure (Klein et al., 2004), with distinct