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Consequences of Exposure to War Violence: Discriminating Those with Heightened Risk for Aggression from Those with Heightened Risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms

Chronic exposure to ethnic–political and war violence has deleterious effects throughout childhood. Some youths exposed to war violence are more likely to act aggressively afterwards, and some are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS symptoms). However, the concordance of th...

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Autores principales: Huesmann, L. Rowell, Dubow, Eric F., Boxer, Paul, Smith, Cathy, Shikaki, Khalil, Landau, Simha F., Gvirsman, Shira Dvir
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10298111/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37372654
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20126067
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author Huesmann, L. Rowell
Dubow, Eric F.
Boxer, Paul
Smith, Cathy
Shikaki, Khalil
Landau, Simha F.
Gvirsman, Shira Dvir
author_facet Huesmann, L. Rowell
Dubow, Eric F.
Boxer, Paul
Smith, Cathy
Shikaki, Khalil
Landau, Simha F.
Gvirsman, Shira Dvir
author_sort Huesmann, L. Rowell
collection PubMed
description Chronic exposure to ethnic–political and war violence has deleterious effects throughout childhood. Some youths exposed to war violence are more likely to act aggressively afterwards, and some are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS symptoms). However, the concordance of these two outcomes is not strong, and it is unclear what discriminates between those who are at more risk for one or the other. Drawing on prior research on desensitization and arousal and on recent social–cognitive theorizing about how high anxious arousal to violence can inhibit aggression, we hypothesized that those who characteristically experience higher anxious arousal when exposed to violence should display a lower increase in aggression after exposure to war violence but the same or a higher increase in PTS symptoms compared to those low in anxious arousal. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed data from our 4-wave longitudinal interview study of 1051 Israeli and Palestinian youths (ages at Wave 1 ranged from 8 to 14, and at Wave 4 from 15–22). We used the 4 waves of data on aggression, PTS symptoms, and exposure to war violence, along with additional data collected during Wave 4 on the anxious arousal participants experienced while watching a very violent film unrelated to war violence (N = 337). Longitudinal analyses revealed that exposure to war violence significantly increased both the risk of subsequent aggression and PTS symptoms. However, anxious arousal in response to seeing the unrelated violent film (measured from skin conductance and self-reports of anxiety) moderated the relation between exposure to war violence and subsequent psychological and behavioral outcomes. Those who experienced greater anxious arousal while watching the violent film showed a weaker positive relation between amount of exposure to war violence and aggression toward their peers but a stronger positive relation between amount of exposure to war violence and PTS symptoms.
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spelling pubmed-102981112023-06-28 Consequences of Exposure to War Violence: Discriminating Those with Heightened Risk for Aggression from Those with Heightened Risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms Huesmann, L. Rowell Dubow, Eric F. Boxer, Paul Smith, Cathy Shikaki, Khalil Landau, Simha F. Gvirsman, Shira Dvir Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Chronic exposure to ethnic–political and war violence has deleterious effects throughout childhood. Some youths exposed to war violence are more likely to act aggressively afterwards, and some are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS symptoms). However, the concordance of these two outcomes is not strong, and it is unclear what discriminates between those who are at more risk for one or the other. Drawing on prior research on desensitization and arousal and on recent social–cognitive theorizing about how high anxious arousal to violence can inhibit aggression, we hypothesized that those who characteristically experience higher anxious arousal when exposed to violence should display a lower increase in aggression after exposure to war violence but the same or a higher increase in PTS symptoms compared to those low in anxious arousal. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed data from our 4-wave longitudinal interview study of 1051 Israeli and Palestinian youths (ages at Wave 1 ranged from 8 to 14, and at Wave 4 from 15–22). We used the 4 waves of data on aggression, PTS symptoms, and exposure to war violence, along with additional data collected during Wave 4 on the anxious arousal participants experienced while watching a very violent film unrelated to war violence (N = 337). Longitudinal analyses revealed that exposure to war violence significantly increased both the risk of subsequent aggression and PTS symptoms. However, anxious arousal in response to seeing the unrelated violent film (measured from skin conductance and self-reports of anxiety) moderated the relation between exposure to war violence and subsequent psychological and behavioral outcomes. Those who experienced greater anxious arousal while watching the violent film showed a weaker positive relation between amount of exposure to war violence and aggression toward their peers but a stronger positive relation between amount of exposure to war violence and PTS symptoms. MDPI 2023-06-06 /pmc/articles/PMC10298111/ /pubmed/37372654 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20126067 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Huesmann, L. Rowell
Dubow, Eric F.
Boxer, Paul
Smith, Cathy
Shikaki, Khalil
Landau, Simha F.
Gvirsman, Shira Dvir
Consequences of Exposure to War Violence: Discriminating Those with Heightened Risk for Aggression from Those with Heightened Risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms
title Consequences of Exposure to War Violence: Discriminating Those with Heightened Risk for Aggression from Those with Heightened Risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms
title_full Consequences of Exposure to War Violence: Discriminating Those with Heightened Risk for Aggression from Those with Heightened Risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms
title_fullStr Consequences of Exposure to War Violence: Discriminating Those with Heightened Risk for Aggression from Those with Heightened Risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms
title_full_unstemmed Consequences of Exposure to War Violence: Discriminating Those with Heightened Risk for Aggression from Those with Heightened Risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms
title_short Consequences of Exposure to War Violence: Discriminating Those with Heightened Risk for Aggression from Those with Heightened Risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms
title_sort consequences of exposure to war violence: discriminating those with heightened risk for aggression from those with heightened risk for post-traumatic stress symptoms
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10298111/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37372654
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20126067
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