Effects of Political Violence Exposure on the Family and Parenting Environment

Political violence and armed conflict are a worldwide problem that exposes families to extreme acts of violence, disrupts community and family economic conditions, compromises family functioning and parenting behaviors, and has deleterious effects on children’s development. In this chapter, we describe two overarching, complementary theoretical frameworks that can explain how exposure to political violence affects family functioning: Bronfenbrenner’s model of hierarchically nested ecological ecosystems and a related model within developmental psychology, the family stress model. Using data from our Palestinian-Israeli exposure to violence study, a prospective study of 1,501 Palestinian and Israeli families, we examine a mediational model showing that the family’s exposure to ethnic-political violence predicts negative family functioning (parental depressive symptoms and marital aggression), which in turn predicts subsequent harsh physical punishment toward one’s children.