Effects children persistent exposure political violence

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议研究的总体目标是促进我们对持续和极端暴露于政治冲突和暴力如何与认知，情感和自我过程结合起来影响儿童的心理社会适应和心理健康的理解。在拟议的调查中，我们将在两个相互关联的样本中研究这些过程：生活在以色列和巴勒斯坦冲突地区的以色列（犹太人和阿拉伯人）和巴勒斯坦儿童。我们建议对来自巴勒斯坦-阿拉伯和以色列（犹太人和阿拉伯人）家庭的三组儿童及其父母进行广泛的访谈评估，从儿童8岁、11岁和14岁开始，分别在儿童11岁、14岁和17岁时结束。我们将实施队列序列前瞻性纵向设计。这一设计将使我们能够分析持续的种族和政治冲突以及频繁爆发的出于政治动机的暴力所破坏的生态环境如何影响儿童从童年中期到青春期中期这一关键发展时期的心理社会适应。拟议项目的设计还允许我们研究环境和个体的预测因素，以及在极端不利的生态条件下有问题和健康的发展途径的相关因素。因此，我们可以研究持续的政治暴力背景对认知、情感风格和自我认同过程的产生和维持的影响，这些过程有助于行为调整和心理健康的持久模式的发展。此外，我们将探讨家庭和同伴关系如何调节和调解暴露于政治暴力和儿童适应之间的联系，并研究在政治暴力条件下父母和孩子的行为之间的交易关系。我们的调查以五个主要目标为指导：1)我们将调查持续和极端政治暴力对不同年龄、性别和不同社会文化背景下儿童正常发展的心理社会和心理健康影响；2)我们将研究持续政治暴力暴露与可能调节或缓和这些关系的三组个体因素之间的关系：认知信念（例如，关于一般攻击和针对外群体成员的攻击的规范性信念）、情绪调节风格（例如，愤怒控制）和自我认同过程（例如，自我价值）；3)我们将调查样本中暴露于极端政治暴力的儿童的个体差异是否与暴露于其他形式的暴力有关，包括社区中的非政治暴力、家庭暴力和学校暴力；4)亲子关系对政治暴力暴露与儿童适应关系的潜在中介和调节作用；5)研究同伴关系对政治暴力暴露与儿童适应之间关系的潜在中介和调节作用。

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.