Development Under Duress: A Transactional-Ecological Model of Adolescent Risk and Resilience

FINAL SCIENTIFIC REPORT "DEVELOPMENT UNDRES DURESS: A TRANSACTIONAL-ECOLOGICAL MODEL OF ADOLESCENT RISK AND RESILIENCE" Principal Investigators: Golan Shahar, Ph.D., Ben Gurion University, Israel Christopher Henrich, Georgia State University, USA This is the final scientific report for a unique study conducted by Golan Shahar, Ph.D., of the Department of Psychology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Christopher C. Henrich, Ph.D., of the Department of Psychology at Georgia State University. The study was mostly funded by the Israel-US Binational Science Foundation (BSF), with some extra financial support from Ben- Gurion University, provided subsequent to the end of BSF funding period. The study encompassed more than five years, assessing adolescents in the Israeli Negev, i.e., in Sderot, Shaar Hanegev, and Dimona. Selection of this population was guided by an ecological developmental approach, which highlights the impact of societal factors, such as economic difficulties, exposure to community and political violence, on adolescent development. The Israeli Negev was selected because its inhabitants are exposed to the latter three adversities. We espoused a transactional-ecological theoretical framework, whereby the focus was (a) on the impact of adolescents, constrained by their personality (i.e., self-criticism, self-efficacy) on their environment (transactional effects), as well as on (b) the influence of the larger social context (social support and stress, economic hardship, exposure to community and terror violence) on adolescents (ecological effects). Due to political unrest during the course of the study, many adolescents in our study sample were exposed in some degree to repeated instances of terrorism. This impacted the study on all fronts: The conceptual, data collection and analyses ones, and interpretation of the results. It also made the study a uniquely important contribution to the research literature, as will be explicated below.

Our study is best construed as involving two parts, or segments: An initial, relatively small segment comprised of (a) an assessment wave conducted in 2007, at the first day of a military escalation at the Western Negev, and prior to a suicide bombing in Dimona; and (b) an auxiliary follow up wave on adolescents in Sderot assessed at the first day of the escalation, and of adolescents in Dimona. This segment, although limited in scope, has yielded an abundance of important findings, attesting to the devastating impact of exposure to missiles and the suicide bombing on adolescent depression and violence, but also to the complex, protective but also risk-related, effects of social support (Barile, Grogan, Henrich, Brookmeyer, & Shahar, 2011l; Brookmeyer, Henrich, Cohen, & Shahar, 2011; Henrich & Shahar, 2008; Shahar, Cohen, Grogan, Barile, & Henrich, 2009).

The second segment comprised of four annual assessments conducted between 2008 and 2011.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study ever to have been conducted on adolescents exposed to terrorism that is based on four annual assessments. Analyzing this complex data set, we found: (a) formidable effects of chronic exposure to kassam rockets on adolescents' depression, anxiety, aggression, and serious violence commission, alongside a linear decrease in anxiety suggestive of a dampening effect (Henrich & Shahar under review), (b) effects [Alphabetical Name Ordering], of exposure to kassam rockets on decreased resilience (i.e., decreased self-efficacy and social support), (c) differences were found between cross-sectional and longitudinal modeling of transactional effects, i.e., effects of the self-concept on the social context. Fewer effects were evinced in more rigorous longitudinal modeling, as compared to cross-sectional modeling. Specifically, self- criticism was found to maintain itself over time via its impact on social support, (d) depressive symptoms were shown to predict an elevation of self-criticism over time, consistent with the scarring hypothesis that the principal investigators have explored previously with data from a pilot grant that preceded the BSF (Shahar & Henrich, 2010).

These findings shed a sobering light on the effects of repeated exposure to terrorism on adolescents' development. Most importantly, they constitute compelling evidence that (terror) violence begets (adolescent) violence, suggesting the need to routinely screen for aggression and violence in schools residing in areas afflicted by terrorism. Second, our findings attest to the complexity inherent in risk and resilience factors, suggesting that most of these embed both risk and resilience (Shahar, Elad-Strenger, & Henrich, 2012). Third, the findings indicate, quite alarmingly, that those protective factors that are supposed to assist adolescents in times of stress are themselves adversely affected by stress, hence their accessibility is diminished. Forth, our findings whereby self- criticism maintains itself over time via its erosion of social support is consistent with action- theoretical formulation highlighting the active impact of individuals upon their social context (Henrich, 2006; Shahar, 2006). Lastly, the findings that depression scars the self, i.e., might increase self-criticism, point to the importance of early detection and prevention of depressive symptoms in early adolescence.