Relations Between Arab-American and Jewish-American Adolescents' Exposure to Media Depictions of Middle-Eastern Violence and Their Ethnic Stereotypes About the Violent Propensities of Ethnic Groups in America

A Social-Cognitive-Ecological Framework for Understanding the Impact of Exposure to Persistent Ethnic–Political Violence on Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment

“…We hypothesize that youth who are exposed to ethnic-political, especially if they identify with one of the ethnic groups, will develop more negative ethnic stereotypes toward the out-group. Our research group (Dubow et al, 2008; Huesmann et al, 2008) has observed findings along these lines in a sample of almost 400 American high school students, 46% of whom were Arab Americans and 23% of whom were Jewish Americans: Youths who were more frequently exposed to media reports of the Middle-East conflict and who had high levels of identification with the Israelis in the media portrayals of the conflict had the highest levels of negative stereotypes toward Arab-American youths. Youths with high exposure to those media reports and who had high levels of identification with Arab actors in the media portrayals had the highest levels of negative stereotypes toward Jewish-American youths‥…”