(Press-News.org) ANN ARBOR, Mich.---As another round of talks continues between Israelis and Palestinians, a new University of Michigan study documents the impact the violence has been inflicting on the region's children.
Palestinian and Israeli children not only suffer the direct physical consequences of violence, they are also being psychologically scarred by the high levels of violence they witness, according to the study, presented earlier this summer at the International Society for Research on Aggression.
Nearly 50 percent of Palestinian children between the ages of 11 and 14 reported that they had seen other Palestinians upset or crying because someone they knew or loved had been killed by Israelis. Nearly the same proportion reported seeing in person other Palestinians who were injured or dead, lying on stretchers or on the ground, as a result of Israeli attacks in the last year.
For Israelis, the figures were lower but still appallingly high, according to the study. More than 25 percent of Israeli Jewish children of the same age reported seeing other Israelis upset or crying because someone they knew or loved had been killed by Palestinians, and nearly 10 percent reported that they had seen in person other Israelis who were injured or dead, lying on stretchers or on the ground, as a result of Palestinian attacks in the last year.
"The results show that Palestinian children in particular are seeing extraordinary amounts of very disturbing violence in their daily lives," said psychologist Rowell Huesmann, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR) and principal investigator of the project. "Furthermore, this exposure is very deleterious. It is associated with dramatic increases in post-traumatic stress symptoms and increases in aggressive behavior directed at peers."
Children who saw the most violence experienced the highest levels of fear, anxiety, nightmares, and incapacitating thoughts, according to results from the first year of the three-year, longitudinal study of 1,500 children ages 8 to 14. For example, more than 70 percent of Israeli Arab children who saw these things frequently had nightmares.
Even more disturbing, both Palestinian and Israeli youth who saw the most violence were significantly more likely to slap, choke, punch, beat, or threaten others of their own groups with a gun or a knife. For example, 51 percent of youth at the lowest levels of violence exposure reported having committed at least one of those acts during the past year versus 71 percent of youth at the highest levels of violence exposure.
"The results show that Palestinian children in particular are seeing extraordinary amounts of very disturbing violence in their daily lives, and the more they are exposed to violence, the more anxiety they experience and the more aggressively they behave," said ISR psychologist Eric Dubow, who along with Paul Boxer of Rutgers University is a co-principal investigator of the project.
The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development and the Fogarty Center for International Studies and is a collaboration between the ISR, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah.
The researchers also showed that the relation between exposure and aggression and anxiety is not due to other characteristics of the youth or family. And although exposure to war-related violence seemed to stimulate more family and community violence as well, analyses showed that the effects on symptoms of post-traumatic stress and on aggressive behavior were a direct result of exposure to war-related violence.
"Because of the sophisticated sampling and interviewing techniques used by our collaborators---Khalil Shikaki at the Palestinian Center and Simha Landau at Hebrew University, we believe that this is the most accurate data every collected on this topic anywhere in the world," said Huesmann, who was recently appointed to the U.S. National Academy of Science, Institute of Medicine Forum on Global Violence.
"Given the accumulated scientific evidence showing that exposure to violence stimulates aggression, some of these results are not surprising," Huesmann said. "However, it is not well known that exposure to war violence committed against your own group by another group increases your aggressive behavior toward members of your own group.
"The truth is that violence is a contagious disease just like smallpox and typhoid, and children are particularly susceptible to catching it. In the Mideast, violence has reached epidemic proportions among children, and most of them are infected. The scar tissue from these infections may never go away, but new infections among children could be reduced if the Israelis and Arabs could only settle their conflict. Knowledge of the devastating psychological impact of violence on their children should be an added incentive for them to settle the conflict."
INFORMATION:
For more on Huesmann: www.isr.umich.edu/home/anniversary/profiles/huesmann.html
Established in 1949, the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) is the world's largest academic social science survey and research organization, and a world leader in developing and applying social science methodology, and in educating researchers and students from around the world. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers, the American National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, the Columbia County Longitudinal Study and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China, and South Africa. ISR is also home to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the world's largest digital social science data archive. Visit the ISR Web site at http://www.isr.umich.edu for more information.
Study: How Palestinian and Israeli children are psychologically scarred by exposure to war
2010-09-16
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
NASA'S LRO exposes moon's complex, turbulent youth
2010-09-16
The moon was bombarded by two distinct populations of asteroids or comets in its youth, and its surface is more complex than previously thought, according to new results from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft featured in three papers appearing in the Sept. 17 issue of Science.
In the first paper, lead author James Head of Brown University in Providence, R.I., describes results obtained from a detailed global topographic map of the moon created using LRO's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA). "Our new LRO LOLA dataset shows that the older highland impactor ...
Pristine rainforests are 'biogeochemical reactors'
2010-09-16
A multinational team that includes a North Carolina State University researcher has found another piece of the atmospheric puzzle surrounding the effects of aerosol particles on climate change. Their findings will contribute to our ability to more accurately measure human impact on climate, and to determine how much pollution may "mask" the actual rate of climate change.
Dr. Markus Petters, an NC State assistant professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences, traveled to the Amazon rainforest in a remote area of Brazil as part of a team that wanted to study how a ...
Fast-track gene-ID method speeds rare disease search
2010-09-16
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A University of Michigan-led research team has identified a gene responsible in some families for a devastating inherited kidney disorder, thanks to a new, faster method of genetic analysis not available even two years ago. The success offers hope that scientists can speed the painstaking search for the genes responsible for many rare diseases and test drugs to treat them.
The U-M scientists report their success with exome capture, a groundbreaking genetic analysis technique, in the September issue of Nature Genetics.
The U-M- led international ...
A scientific breakthrough could be the first step in a better treatment for leukemia patients
2010-09-16
A discovery made by Dr. Tarik Möröy, President and Scientific Director and Director of the Hematopoiesis and Cancer research unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), and his team was recently published in Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology. The researchers found that a protein can regulate certain characteristics of blood stem cells, which could lead to a better treatment for leukemia patients. Dr. Cyrus Khandanpour, medical doctor and postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Möröy's laboratory, is the study's first author.
The ...
Putting a spin on light and atoms
2010-09-16
Magnetometers come in many shapes and sizes – an ordinary hand-held compass is the simplest – but alkali-vapor magnetometers are extrasensitive devices that measure magnetic fields using light and atoms. They can detect archaeological remains and mineral deposits underground by their faint magnetic signatures, among a host of other scientific applications.
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of California at Berkeley, and the Vavilov State Optical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, have now made sensitive ...
Life Coach and Speaker Returns to His Glasgow Roots in the East End
2010-09-16
In the world of Life Coaching there is a popular adage that states "If you do the same things in the same way, you'll get the same results. To expect different results is a sign of madness."
This is what Allan Wilson, owner of Success365, Life Coaching and personal development consultants found himself doing for over a period of almost 30 years.
Wilson who now heads up his own company Success365 which specialises in Life Coaching and Motivational Speaking, spent many years trying his hand at various businesses before realising that he had to change himself first before ...
Chicago Area Home Remodeler Experiences Business Increase
2010-09-16
In 1984 the Pinsler family founded Galaxie Construction in a two-room office located on Armitage Avenue in Chicago. Their goal was to create the largest full service home remodeling company in the Chicagoland area. Three years later the company's operations had doubled and the increase in business required a move to a larger facility. The Pinsler's moved into their new headquarters in Chicago and annual sales climbed to twelve million dollars. Galaxie continued to ride the crest of the red-hot residential remodeling market and in 1994 relocated to the corners of Touhy and ...
PulseUniform Offers Clearance Sale for September
2010-09-16
It is still roughly 3 months before the merry month of December yet PulseUniform has already commenced with giving presents to their valuable customers by putting many of its best seller items into clearance sale. According to the website, you can expect up to 70% of discount from thousands of items. This is just one of the many promotional give away of PulseUniforms for their customers. Among the clearance sale are the scrub tops, scrub pants, lab coats, and scrub jackets. Adar, Barco, and Cherokee are among the many brands that are on discount sale as of the moment.
Despite ...
Award Winning Trading Systems Developer Dean Hoffman to Speak at the Traders Expo in Las Vegas
2010-09-16
Traders don't need to have a million dollar account at a financial institution to have access to a super powerful, trend-following trading system ( http://www.relativitytradingsystem.com ). In this talk, futures trading expert Dean Hoffman explains how his Relativity Trading System gives traders the features, power, and speed of a million dollar trading system at a tiny fraction of the price. Traders will see how Hoffman has combined 5 trading systems ( http://www.relativitytradingsystem.com ) in one, each one working simultaneously to give traders a broader and deeper ...
CFOwise Founder recognized by Utah Valley Business Quarterly
2010-09-16
The Utah Valley Business Q Website today announced the winners of its 2010 "top 40 under 40″ Awards, spotlighting outstanding Utah entrepreneurs who are under the age of 40. Included in its list is CFOwise founder, Ken Kaufman, among many other great entrepreneurs.
CFOwise Founder and CEO, Ken Kaufman commented: "This is a great honor to be featured amongst some of brightest young entrepreneurs in the valley. This recognition is a credit to those with whom I work and associate."
To read more coverage on the those recognized, visit the Utah Valley Business Q ...