Examining Bidirectional Pathways Between Exposure to Political Violence and Adolescent Adjustment in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Objective. Research on social ecologies of political violence has been largely confined to crosssectional tests of the impact of political violence on child adjustment, limiting perspectives on more nuanced causal pathways, including tests of reciprocal relations between exposure to political violence and child adjustment. Based on a four-waves of longitudinal, this study breaks new ground in assessing bidirectional relations between exposure to political violence in the form of experience with sectarian antisocial behavior and adolescents' adjustment problems.Method. The study included 999 mother-adolescent dyads selected from working-class neighborhoods in Belfast ranked in the bottom quartile in terms of social deprivation in Northern Ireland, with approximately 35-40 families recruited to participate from each neighborhood.Across the four annual waves of data, adolescents (52% female) were 12.18 (SD=1.82), 13.24 (SD=1.83), 13.62 (SD=1.99), and 14.66 (SD=1.96) years old. Cross-lagged path models were tested through R package lavaan with full information maximum likelihood. Results.. Reflecting a reciprocal pathway, adjustment problems related to higher reports of experience with sectarian antisocial behavior one year later. Boys' experience with sectarian antisocial behavior related to greater adjustment problems one year later; but this reciprocal path did hold for the girls.Conclusions. These findings offer promising directions towards better modeling of dynamic relations between exposure to political violence and adolescent adjustment over time.Keywords: political violence, child and adolescent adjustment, bidirectional pathways, community violence, gender differences Bidirectional Relations, Political Violence and Adolescent Adjustment 3 Examining Bidirectional Pathways between Exposure to Political Violence and Adolescent Adjustment over Time in Northern IrelandThere is increasing concern worldwide with regard to the impact of political violence on children's adjustment and well-being (Betancourt & Khan, 2008;Boxer et al., 2013;Ladd & Cairns, 1996). Research has repeatedly documented there is an elevated risk for adjustment problems among children and adolescents living in contexts of political violence (Betancourt, Meyers-Ohki, Charrow, & Tol, 2013;Betancourt et al., 2014;Dubow, Huesmann, and Boxer, 2009;Jordans, Tol, Komproe, & De Jong, 2009). These findings call attention to the significant challenges for children's adjustment posed by political violence and the urgency for effective intervention for child adjustment problems. The urgency for intervention is heightened if one considers that children's adjustment problems may not only pose problems for children's well-being but also contribute to the continuation or even escalation of political violence (Taylor, Merrilees, GoekeMorey, .Studies on the interrelations between youth adjustment and exposure to political violence have typically made the implicit assumption that the direction of causation flows in one direction. That is, the conceptua...

Suicide in Northern Ireland: epidemiology, risk factors, and prevention

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Youth in Northern Ireland: Linking Violence Exposure, Emotional Insecurity, and the Political Macrosystem

“…The relation between direct exposure to sectarian violence and more emotional insecurity about the community was stronger for girls than boys (Cummings et al, 2017a). Lastly, although exposure to sectarian violence predicted adjustment problems for both boys and girls (Cummings et al, 2010a, 2012), the reciprocal study linking adjustment problems with more sectarian violence exposure was significant only for boys (Cummings et al, 2019). As it pertains to the current study, it is possible that the effects of intergroup tension and ingroup threat in the macrosystem may differ between girls and boys.…”

“…Findings showed that adolescents’ emotional insecurity about the community exacerbated the impact of family conflict on emotional insecurity about the family (Cummings et al, 2016b). Finally, investigating reciprocal relations, adjustment problems were linked with more sectarian violence exposure 1 year later for boys, and this higher exposure related to even more adjustment problems a year after that (Cummings et al, 2019).…”

Relations Among Father's Presence, Family Conflict, and Adolescent Adjustment in Northern Ireland

“…Notably, there is substantial evidence that fathers' influence child adjustment in contexts of interparental (Cummings, Merrilees, & George, 2010) and family conflict (Cummings, Koss, & Davies, 2015). However, relatively little is known about the father's role in adolescent adjustment, including the significance of father's presence on family conflict, and the potential protective influence of fathers in contexts of environmental adversity, such as low socioeconomic status (Tamis-LeMonda & McFadden, 2010) and political violence (Cummings et al, 2017). The present manuscript addresses these gaps by examining the impact of fathers on adolescent adjustment in these contexts of environmental adversity, based on six waves of longitudinal data collected on a large sample (i.e., 999) of youths in families exposed to political violence from socially deprived neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland.…”

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