Gender Issues in the Effects of Exposure to Violence on Children

• NCJ Number: 177908
• Journal: Journal of Emotional Abuse Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Dated: 1999 Pages: 87-105
• Author(s): Patricia K. Kerig
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study reviews the research on gender differences in children's responses to violence in the home and conceptualizes the various developmental pathways to maladjustment for boys and girls.

Abstract

A large body of literature has found that exposure to violence has negative effects on children, placing them at increased risk for developing emotional and behavioral problems. Further, a number of recent investigations have suggested there may be gender differences in the ways in which these effects occur. In these studies, exposure to violence was associated with increased symptoms in all areas of functioning for boys; for girls, violence was particularly a risk for the development of internalizing problems. For boys the effects of violence were mediated by perceived threat; and for girls, self-blame acted as a mediator for their adjustment. Boys have been characterized as "warriors" in responding to violence. The pathway to maladjustment for boys may be a mismatch between their belief that they should be able to confront and overcome the problem and the ineffectiveness of their efforts to do so. This results in frustration that can take the dual form of increasing both anxiety and aggression. For girls, as exposure to violence increases, so does their tendency to blame themselves for their parents' conflicts, consistent with the suggestion that girls respond to stress as "worriers." The pathway to maladjustment for girls may be through negative cognitions such as self-blame, which lead particularly to problems of internalizing: hopelessness, anxiety, and depression. Why these gender differences occur and the mechanisms that account for them has not been determined. One speculative explanation is the process of sex-role socialization. Whatever the dynamic of differential effects by gender, it is important for therapists who deal with such children to identify the particular ways in which individual children are attempting to solve and cope with the troubling reality of violence between their parents, and to guide them in the development of more constructive channels of response. 6 figures and 81 references