Sep 17, 2010 06:03 GMT  ·  By
Graph developed by the U-M team during its investigation on the effects of exposure to violence on Israeli and Palestine children
2 photos
   Graph developed by the U-M team during its investigation on the effects of exposure to violence on Israeli and Palestine children

Prompted by a new round of negotiations that is taking place between the Palestinians and the Israelis, researchers at the University of Michigan conducted a new study children belonging to both factions, and learned that exposure to violence and war has a very negative effect.

The U-M team analyzed all types of violence present in the region, and also looked at how each of these factors influenced the development of children growing up experiencing them.

One of the main conclusions of the investigation was that the kids were not only subjected to the direct, physical consequences of conflict, but also to long-lasting psychological impacts.

They are, in other words, being constantly emotionally scarred, which is most likely not what a good parent would want for their sons or daughters.

The conclusions of the new investigation were presented earlier in the summer, at a meeting of the International Society for Research on Aggression.

“The results show that Palestinian children in particular are seeing extraordinary amounts of very disturbing violence in their daily lives,” explains the director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics, psychologist Rowell Huesmann.

“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,” adds the expert, who is based at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR).

Huesmann was also the principal investigator of the new investigation. He goes on to reveal worrying statistics concerning both Israeli and Palestinian children.

In the studies conducted on the former, it was revealed that about a half of those aged between 11 and 14 had seen another Palestinian crying or being upset about the killing of a loved one or an acquaintance by Israeli forces.

The other half of children said that they saw people dead, injured, lying in the street, or a stretcher, with their own eyes. The victims had been injured or killed by last year's Israeli assaults.

Conversely, of Israeli Jewish children the same age during the study, it was revealed that 25 percent had been exposed to similar experiences. Only 10 percent had seen victims of the confrontation with their own eyes.

In children from both sides of the argument, the levels of exposure they experienced translated into very negative side-effects, including fear, anxiety, nightmares, and incapacitating thoughts.

“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,” ISR psychologist Eric Dubow adds.

“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,” Huesmann reveals.

The expert was recently appointed to the US National Academy of Science, in the 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,” the expert goes on to say.

“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,” he concludes.

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Graph developed by the U-M team during its investigation on the effects of exposure to violence on Israeli and Palestine children
Graph developed by the U-M team during its investigation on the effects of exposure to violence on Israeli and Palestine children
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