Effects on children of persistent exposure to extreme political violence

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goal of the proposed research is to advance our understanding of how persistent and extreme exposure to political conflict and violence combines with cognitive, emotional, and self processes to influence the psychosocial adjustment and mental health of children. In the proposed investigation, we will study those processes in two linked samples: Israeli (Jewish and Arab) and Palestinian children living in the conflicted areas of Israel and Palestine. We propose to conduct extensive interview assessments on three cohorts of children and their parents drawn from populations of both Palestinian-Arab and Israeli (Jewish and Arab) families beginning when the children are 8, 11, and 14 years old and concluding when the children are, respectively, 11, 14, and 17 years old. We will implement a cohort-sequential prospective longitudinal design. This design will permit us to analyze the ways in which ecological contexts marred by constant ethnic and political conflicts and frequent eruptions of politically motivated violence affect children's psychosocial adjustment from the critical developmental period of middle childhood through middle adolescence. The design of the proposed project also permits us to study the contextual and individual predictors and correlates of problematic and healthy developmental pathways under extremely adverse ecological conditions. Thus, we can examine the influence of an ongoing politically violent context on the emergence and maintenance of cognitions, emotional styles, and self-identity processes that contribute to the development of enduring patterns of behavioral adjustment and mental health. Additionally, we will explore the ways in which family and peer relationships serve to moderate and mediate associations between exposure to political violence and child adjustment, and examine transactional relations between the behavior of parents and their children under politically violent conditions. Our investigation is guided by five principal aims: 1) We will investigate the psychosocial and mental health consequences of exposure to persistent and extreme political violence to the normal development of children, at different ages, by gender, and across different socio-cultural contexts; 2) We will examine the relations between exposure to persistent political violence and three sets of individual factors that potentially could mediate or moderate those relations: cognitive beliefs (e.g., normative beliefs about general aggression and aggression targeted at outgroup members), emotion regulation styles (e.g., anger control), and self-identity processes (e.g., self worth); 3) We will investigate whether individual differences among children in our sample in exposure to extreme political violence are associated with exposure to other forms of violence, including non-political violence in the community, domestic violence, and school violence; 4) We will examine the potential mediating and moderating effects of parent-child relationships on the relation between exposure to political violence and child adjustment; and 5) We will examine the potential mediating and moderating effects of peer relationships on the association between exposure to political violence and child adjustment.