Passage Jake and His Classmate Michael Both Grew Up in a a High-Crime

Passage
Jake and his classmate Michael both grew up in a high-crime public housing project in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in a large urban area.  Both children lived in single-parent households and had almost no relationship with their fathers.  They performed poorly in school and frequently got in trouble with authority figures.  Neither completed high school and both had been arrested by the time they turned 18.At this point their trajectories begin to diverge.  By age 27, Jake had been in and out of prison three times, had fathered four children by four different women, and was abusing drugs and alcohol daily.  On the other hand, Michael had earned a general equivalency diploma, was a general manager at a factory, was married with a biological son and adopted daughter, and owned a home in the suburbs.Jake and Michael both participated in a study about resilience-the ability to prevail in the face of threats to adequate psychosocial development.  This study recruited 81 adult men who as children had lived in the same public housing project between 1976 and 1980.  The investigators categorized participants into one of two groups based on their adult outcomes-low resilience and high resilience.  All the men reported family difficulties while growing up in crime and poverty.  The low-resilience men (n = 69) were significantly more likely to report drug and alcohol use and current or prior imprisonment, whereas the high-resilience men (n = 12) were all employed, and most were married homeowners.The study's primary finding was that high-resilience men received more social support outside their immediate families while growing up than did low-resilience men.  Results also suggested that high-resilience men tended to have calmer, more optimistic dispositions, whereas low-resilience men were more anxious, disagreeable, and pessimistic.
-Which of the following supports the study's primary finding in explaining why Michael has experienced fewer health problems than Jake?

A) Michael's wife convinced him to quit smoking and makes sure he sees his doctor regularly.
B) Growing up, Michael was close to his pastor, who helped him handle stress productively.
C) As an adult, Jake does not have health insurance, so he cannot afford preventive care.
D) Jake's neurotic temperament makes him more prone to depression and anxiety.

Correct Answer:

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