Eric Dubow

Bowling Green State University | BGSU · Department of Psychology

According to social-cognitive ecological theory, violence exposure increases emotional factors-such as callous-unemotional (CU) traits-which then contribute to engagement in aggressive behavior. However, previous research has generally not tested this mediational pathway, particularly in the context of persistent ethnic-political violence exposure....

To address a gap in the literature regarding the development of youth disclosure across the transition to adolescence, the current research uses a cohort-sequential approach to study youth disclosure from middle childhood through adolescence. Longitudinal data from three cohorts of parents were utilized (N = 1359; children at T1 were in grades 2 [M...

Chronic exposure to ethnic–political and war violence has deleterious effects throughout childhood. Some youths exposed to war violence are more likely to act aggressively afterwards, and some are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTS symptoms). However, the concordance of these two outcomes is not strong, and it is unclear...

Objective: Callousness has been identified as a key driver of aggressive and violent behavior from childhood into early adulthood. Although previous research has underscored the importance of the parenting environment in contributing to the development of youth callousness, findings have generally been confined to the between-individual level and...

In this study, we examine whether youth who are exposed to more weapons violence are subsequently more likely to behave violently with weapons. We use data collected with a 3‐cohort, 4‐wave, 10‐year longitudinal study of 426 high‐risk youth from Flint, Michigan, who were second, fourth, or ninth‐graders in 2006–2007. The data were obtained from ind...

Recent high-profile incidents involving the deadly application of force in the United States sparked worldwide protests and renewed scrutiny of police practices as well as relations between police officers and minoritized communities. In this report, we consider the inappropriate use of force by police from the perspective of behavioral and social...

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 fra...

Cyber-victimization has become a serious concern facing adolescents in the digital age. Given the differences and similarities between cyber-victimization and in-person victimization, research needs to examine whether prior understanding of coping with in-person victimization applies to coping with cyber-victimization. The purpose of this study was...

We examine whether cumulative‐past and concurrent exposure to ethnic‐political violence among Israeli and Palestinian youth predict serious violent behavior and antisocial outcomes toward the in‐group and the out‐group. We collected four waves of data from 162 Israeli Jewish and 400 Palestinian youths (three age cohorts: 8, 11, and 14 years old) an...

Recently, cyber-victimization has become an ever increasing concern for adolescents. Given the negative consequences of cyber-victimization, it is important to understand how adolescents learn strategies to cope (i.e., “coping socialization”) with cyber-victimization. The purpose of this study is to understand common coping strategies reported by a...

Purpose: We use data from a community sample, the Columbia County Longitudinal Study, which followed participants from childhood through adulthood, to examine the longitudinal relations between mental health (serious anxiety and serious depression) and offending across three waves of data collection (ages 19, 30, and 48). Method: Participants we...

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144599/2/ab21766_am.pdf

In this article, we test the proposition that identity integration—or perceptions of compatibility versus conflict between one’s social identities—predicts behaviors in intergroup contexts. Using a sample of 171 Muslim Arab American adolescents aged 13 to 19, we examine the relations between identity integration of Muslim and American identities, e...

This introductory summary provides an overview of the content of the special issue entitled “Identity Development Process and Content: Toward an Integrated and Contextualized Science of Identity.” The 16 theoretical and empirical articles that comprise this special issue were selected to highlight innovative methodologies, theoretical integration,...

The present study assessed religious coping with sexual stigma in 260 young adults with same-sex attractions. Although the majority of the sample rarely utilized religious coping, a significant minority of participants frequently turned to religion to deal with sexual stigma. Controlling for demographic and general religious variables, positive rel...

We examine the hypothesis that children's exposure to ethnic-political conflict and violence over the course of a year stimulates their increased aggression toward their own in-group peers in subsequent years. In addition, we examine what social cognitive and emotional processes mediate these effects and how these effects are moderated by gender, a...

The reader might get the impression that the four projects described in this Special Section proceeded in a systematic and predictable way. Of course, those of us engaged in each research project encountered pitfalls and challenges along the way. A main goal of this Special Section is to provide pathways and encouragement for those who may be inter...

Ethno-political violence impacts thousands of youth and is associated with numerous negative outcomes. Yet little research examines adaptation to ethno-political violence over time or across multiple outcomes simultaneously. This study examines longitudinal patterns of aggressive behavior and emotional distress as they co-occur among Palestinian (n...

Purpose: We use data from a community sample followed from ages 8 to 48. We focus on the main and risk-buffering effects of childhood and adolescent protective factors for predicting adulthood violence (official records and self reports). Method: Males (N=436) from the Columbia County Longitudinal Study participated. The youth, their parents, an...

Text messaging has increased dramatically among adolescents over the past 10 years. Many researchers have cited potential consequences associated with a high frequency of texting and problematic texting behaviors. This study examines the relations among frequency of texting, a specific type of problematic texting (i.e., compulsive texting), and ado...

This study examines the effects of chronic (i.e., repeated and cumulative) mediated exposure to political violence on ideological beliefs regarding political conflict. It centers on these effects on young viewers, from preadolescents to adolescents. Ideological beliefs refers here to support of war, perception of threat to one’s nation, and normati...

Using data from two American and one Finnish long-term longitudinal studies, we examined continuity of general aggression from age 8 to physical aggression in early adulthood (age 21-30) and whether continuity of aggression differed by country, sex, and parent occupational status. In all samples, childhood aggression was assessed via peer nominatio...

This study introduces the concept of chronic (i.e., repeated and cumulative) mediated exposure to political violence and investigates its effects on aggressive behavior and post-traumatic stress (PTS) symptoms in young viewers. Embracing the risk-matrix approach, these effects are studied alongside other childhood risk factors that influence maladj...

Background The key question is: are self-reports and official records equally valid indicators of criminal offending?AimsWe examine the correspondence between self-reports and official records of offending, the similarity of childhood and adolescent individual and contextual predictors of both measures of offending, and the similarity of age 48 cor...

Ethno-political conflict impacts thousands of youth globally and has been associated with a number of negative psychological outcomes. Extant literature has mostly addressed the adverse emotional and behavioral outcomes of exposure while failing to examine change over time in social cognitive factors in contexts of ethno-political conflict. Using c...

The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology explores facets of human behavior, thoughts, and feelings experienced in the context of media use and creation. Divided into six sections, chapters in this volume trace the history of media psychology; address content areas for media research, including children's media use, media violence and desensitization...

This study was based on the theory that adolescents view scenes of violent ethnic conflicts in the mass media through the lens of their own ethnicity, and that the resulting social-cognitive reactions influence their negative stereotypes about similar ethnic groups in their own country. We interviewed 89 Jewish and 180 Arab American high school stu...

Bronfenbrenner's (1979) ecological model proposes that events in higher order social ecosystems should influence human development through their impact on events in lower order social ecosystems. This proposition was tested with respect to ecological violence and the development of children's aggression via analyses of 3 waves of data (1 wave yearl...

We examine the role of family- and individual-level protective factors in the relation between exposure to ethnic-political conflict and violence and posttraumatic stress among Israeli and Palestinian youth. Specifically, we examine whether parental mental health (lack of depression), positive parenting, children's self-esteem, and academic achieve...

We examine cumulative and prospective effects of exposure to conflict and violence across four contexts (ethnic-political, community, family, school) on posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms in Palestinian and Israeli youth. Interviews were conducted with 600 Palestinian and 901 Israeli (Jewish and Arab) children (ages 8, 11, and 14) and their parent...

In this article, we present an overview of the literature focusing on how adolescents cope with stressful experiences. First, we present the current approaches to conceptualizing coping, including a definition of coping (cognitive and behavioral processes that manage external and/or internal demands that exceed the resources of the person); models...

Early models of behavior development tended to de-emphasize the importance of the middle childhood years, labeling this time period a “latency” phase between the theoretically more active periods of early childhood and adolescence (Freud, 1923/1961). As more recent models attest, middle childhood actually is a period critical for the development of...

Reported on an initial implementation and evaluation of a 13-session school-based primary prevention program designed to teach children coping skills. Practice of the skills was applied to five stressful experiences that are likely to occur to a significant number of children: parental separation/divorce, loss of a loved one, move to a new home or...

Examined the effects of poverty and the quality of the home environment on changes in the academic and behavioral adjustment of elementary school-age children. Analyses are based on a subset of children (n = 473) from a national data set. The children completed an academic achievement measure in I986 (when they were 5 to 8 years old) and again in 1...

To estimate the influence of early childhood television exposure on fourth-grade academic, psychosocial, and lifestyle characteristics. Prospective longitudinal study. Institut de la Statistique du Québec, Québec, Canada. A total of 1314 (of 2120) children. Main Exposure Parent-reported data on weekly hours of television exposure at 29 and 53 month...

Despite extensive literatures on the impact on children of exposure to violence in families, neighborhoods, and peer groups, there has been relatively little effort evaluating their cumulative impact. There also has been less attention to the effects of exposure to political conflict and violence. We collected data from a representative sample of 6...

We examine the prediction of individuals' educational and occupational success at age 48 from contextual and personal variables assessed during their middle childhood and late adolescence. We focus particularly on the predictive role of the parents' educational level during middle childhood, controlling for other indices of socioeconomic status and...

In this article, we describe a theoretical framework for understanding how persistent and extreme exposure to ethnic-political conflict and violence interacts with cognitive, emotional, and self processes to influence children's psychosocial adjustment. Three recent strands of theorizing guide our approach. First, we focus on how observational and...

Using data from the Columbia County Longitudinal Study, a 40-year longitudinal study following an entire county's population of third-grade students from age 8 to 48, we examine questions about the long-term consequences of aggressive and antisocial behavior in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. We found moderate levels of continuity of a...

This study examined the prediction of different forms of adult aggression in two countries from child and adolescent aggression. It was based on two longitudinal projects: the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS; N = 196 boys and 173 girls) conducted in Finland and the Columbia County Longitudinal Study (CCLS; N...

To examine the role of individually and contextually based factors measured during childhood and adolescence in predicting alcohol use and abuse measured during early and middle adulthood. Initial sample of 856 individuals first interviewed at age 8 with follow-up interviews at 19 (n = 427), 30 (n = 409), and 48 (n = 523). Individuals enrolled in 3...

Presents an obituary of Leonard D. Eron (1920-2007). Eron conducted one of the longest running (spanning over 40 years) longitudinal studies on aggression in children to date: the Columbia County Longitudinal Study. Eron's conclusion that media violence causes aggression in children lead to a storm of controversy. Eron's conclusions were supported...

The authors examined the prediction of occupational attainment by age 40 from contextual and personal variables assessed during childhood and adolescence in 2 participant samples: (a) the Columbia County Longitudinal Study, a study of 856 third graders in a semirural county in New York State that began in 1960, and (b) the Jyva??skyla?? Longitudina...

This article describes qualitative and quantitative assessment based on responses of 221 teachers from nine elementary schools in two districts (urban and suburban) to inform plans for reducing and preventing student aggression. Teachers' perceptions of students' aggressive behavior and beliefs were validated against students' self-reports and arch...

This article describes qualitative and quantitative assessment based on responses of 221 teachers from nine elementary schools in two districts (urban and suburban) to inform plans for reducing and preventing student aggression. Teachers' perceptions of students' aggressive behavior and beliefs were validated against students' self-reports and arch...

Contemporary research on the development and prevention of aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence emphasizes the importance of social-cognitive factors such as perceptual biases, problem-solving skills, and social-moral beliefs in the maintenance of aggression. Indeed, school-based social-cognitive intervention approaches have been identi...

Contemporary research on the development and prevention of aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence emphasizes the importance of social-cognitive factors such as perceptual biases, problem-solving skills, and social-moral beliefs in the maintenance of aggression. Indeed, school-based social-cognitive intervention approaches have been identi...

Tested a theoretical model in which social cognitions about aggression partially mediated the relation of environmental and emotion regulation factors to children's aggressive behavior. An ethnically diverse sample of 778 children (57% girls) in grades 4–6 from both urban and suburban schools participated. Measures included exposure to aggression (...

Examined associations with witnessing and being victimized by "low-level" aggressive acts (e.g., pushing, gossip) and three indicators of psychosocial functioning in a sample of 771 elementary school students from one urban and one suburban school district. Results indicated that exposure to low-level aggression appears to relate to psychosocial fu...

The four studies in this special issue represent important advances in research on the intergenerational transmission of aggressive behavior. In this commentary, we review the key features and findings of these studies, as well as our own cross-generational study of aggression, the Columbia County Longitudinal Study. Next, we consider important the...

Early aggressive behaviour is one of the best predictors of adult criminality. To assess the degree to which family background variables, parental beliefs and behaviour and child intelligence predict child aggression and adult criminality. Data were used from the Colombia County Longitudinal Study, a longitudinal study of 856 children in third grad...

Student aggression in schools continues to be a problem. School-based programs are a critical part of the solution. In this article we review research on the development of aggressive behavior within a social-cognitive information-processing (SCIP) framework. Huesmann (1998) presented a “unified” SCIP model in an attempt to integrate extant models....

A study was designed to identify the potential contributory effects of different social information perspectives on the stability of bully and victim social roles and the interrelationships of three behavioral indices of bully and victim behavior. Students (N=120) from grades 5 and 6 completed behavioral indices of bully and victim behavior. Sevent...

Tripartite beliefs models are proposed as potential explanations for the stability of bully and victim behavior. These models include normative beliefs about acceptability of weakness, and provoked and unprovoked aggression; self-efficacy beliefs about the ability to use aggression and inhibit aggressive impulses; and outcome-expectancy beliefs reg...

Assessed in the present study were the contributions of variables thought to be related to positive expectations for the future in a sample of inner-city sixth-grade through eighth-grade students. Students completed self-report measures in September and June. At each time point, higher levels of positive expectations for the future were related to...

Ethnic identity was examined as a source of stress and as a coping resource among Jewish sixth through eighth graders (N = 75). Over 50% of the students reported having experienced various ethnic-related stressors in the past year (e.g., being restricted from activities due to the Sabbath, experiencing anti-Semitic comments). Jewish early adolescen...

Studied 185 seventh- and eighth-grade inner-city adolescents. Participants were categorized as low and high in exposure to stressors (stressful events or neighborhood disadvantage) and externally exhibited competence (self-, teacher, and school reports). We predicted that resilient (high-stress/high-competence) and stress-affected (high-stress/low-...

In this study, we investigated developmental and cross-situational differences in strategies adolescents use to cope with family, school, and peer stressors. We also examined the relation between adolescents' use of coping strategies and two indices of adjustment (self perceptions of their adjustment as a result of coping with the specific stressor...

This study examined the degree to which religion is perceived as a source of stress and as a coping resource among Jewish students. Subjects, 75 sixth- through eighth-grade students in a Midwestern city, completed a survey in Sunday school. Twenty of the students also responded to a structured interview about their stressors and coping strategies....

Examined the contribution of particular stressors and resources to inner-city children's adjustment. Fourth, 5th, and 6th graders (N = 315; 66% from ethnic minority groups) reported on their recent exposure to stressful events and neighborhood disadvantage, their perceptions of self-worth and social support, and their behavioral and academic adjust...

The internal consistency and validity of the Diahetes Regimen Responsibility Scale (DRRS) were examined in a sample of 49 youths. The DRRS demonstrated adequate internal consistency, and most subscales correlated significantly with diabetes knowledge. Only the parent report on the insulin administration scale and the child report on dietary managem...

This study examines the relation between mothers' and adolescents' perceptions of one another's behavior and their actual communication behavior during a problem-solving task. Forty mother-adolescent dyads completed self-report and observational measures of conflict and negative beliefs regarding the other. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses...

Investigated cross-situational patterns in children's coping with observed interpersonal conflict. Children in Grades 4, 5, 7, and 8 (N = 417) reported on their use of five coping responses when exposed to conflict they observed between the adults in their homes and between their peers. Although children reported using the same relative pattern of...

Children and adolescents with diabetes indicated how they coped with three diabetes-related situations (diabetes-related social, diet, fingerprick) and a general peer-argument situation. Children utilized approach-coping strategies (i.e., problem solving, seeking social support) more frequently than adolescents. Both the approach- and avoidance-cop...

Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses were conducted to examine the relationship of religious and nonreligious coping methods to psychological distress among college students in the 1990-91 Gulf War crisis. Students completed measures of religious coping, nonreligious coping, and specific (war-related) and global psychological distress two days...

Youngsters with diabetes face numerous, daily challenges associated with their treatment. Previous research has examined coping in relation to global medical adjustment. However, the role that coping with diabetes-specific stressors plays in adherence to different treatment components, and child responsibility for these components, is not well unde...

Interpersonal aggression creates numerous problems for victims, perpetrators, and society in general. The prevalence estimates of conduct disorder in children and adolescents are approximately 5% (e.g., Offord, Boyle, & Racine, 1991). Definitions of aggression are numerous and include aggressive behaviors which vary in levels of severity. Eron (198...

In this study, 375 adolescents from the junior high and high school of a Midwestern, semi-rural community were surveyed to investigate: (1) developmental and gender differences in strategies that adolescents use to cope with family, school, and peer stressors; and (2) the relation between coping strategies and outcome. The students were divided int...

Administered measures related to coping strategies, perceived controllability over the stressor, perceived quality of the school environment, school stressors, and coping effectiveness for the specific transition-related stressor to 162 7th graders 3 wks into the new school year and again 3 mo later. The use of approach coping strategies and favora...

Presents initial findings regarding the reliability and validity of a newly developed self-report coping measure for children. The study also addresses several conceptual issues (e.g., stressor appraisals, cross-situational consistency in coping). As per Roth and Cohen (1986), coping items were conceptualized as comprising approach strategies (i. e...

We investigated the contributions of stressful life events and resources (social support and social problem-solving skills) to predicting changes in children's adjustment. At Time 1, 361 third through fifth graders completed measures of social support and social problem-solving skills. Their parents completed a stressful life events scale and a chi...

101 male and 115 female nonparent college students' expectations for their future children's behavior as toddlers and for their own behavior as parents were assessed with a modified Toddler Temperament Scale and a modified childrearing attitudes scale. Family environment, experience with children (EWC), and psychological well-being (PWB) were exami...

The primary question addressed in this study is, What factors distinguish between adolescent mothers with school-aged children who are providing relatively supportive home environments for their children, and their peers who are providing less supportive care? Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth merged mother- child data set were us...

This study was undertaken to examine the contribution of risk and protective factors in the adjustment of children born to teenage mothers. Information from a national data set was obtained on a subset of 721 children aged 8-15 and their mothers. Results showed that several risk factors (e.g., poverty status, urban residence, mother's self-esteem)...

Surveyed 1,384 junior high and high school students in a semirural community regarding their health-related concerns and perceptions of helping agents. Significant proportions of adolescents reported experiencing such problems as trouble with parents (70%), depression (62%), feeling overweight (46%), and suicidal thoughts (36%). Females, high schoo...

This study investigated the relation between stressful life events and adjustment in elementary school children, with particular emphasis on the potential main and stress-buffering effects of social support and social problem-solving skills. Third through fifth graders (N = 361) completed social support and social problem-solving measures. Their pa...

Recent research has demonstrated that aggressive behavior develops early in life and is a relatively stable characteristic over time and across situations (Huesmann, Eron, Lefkowitz, & Walder, 1984; Olweus, 1979; Roff & Wirt, 1984). Huesmann et al. (1984) reported an impressive relation for males between peer-rated aggression in the third grade and...

We administered a questionnaire anonymously to 1,384 junior high and high school students. Results indicated that 36% of these adolescents had experienced suicidal thoughts in the past year; 7% reported having made a suicide attempt. Nearly half (n = 48) of the students experiencing "extremely troubling" suicidal ideation reported having made an at...

We devised a self-report Survey of Children's Social Support (SOCSS) to assess three potential aspects of social support in elementary school age children: the frequency of supportive behaviors available from the child's support network (Scale of Available Behaviors, or SAB); the child's subjective appraisals of family, teacher, and peer support (A...

By a peer nomination procedure, 238 pupils in Grades 3–5 were identified as one of five social status types: popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, and average. Status group differences among teachers' reports, peers' reports, and children's self-reports of adjustment were examined. The results were consistent with previous studies in that re...

The relation between aggression and peer social status was investigated in a group of 238 third-through fifth-grade children. Peer social status refers to the degree to which a child is accepted by his or her peer group. By asking children to nominate peers they “like most” and “like least,” one can identify children who are popular, rejected, negl...

The present study examined family socioeconomic indicators, parent child-rearing variables, and childhood and adolescent behaviors, which were hypothesized to predict adult ego development. The subjects were 206 females and 192 males, ages 30-31, who began participating in a longitudinal study at age 8. At that time, interviews with their parents y...

The effects of four school-based interventions designed to decrease children's aggression and promote prosocial behavior were assessed. One hundred and four aggressive boys, ages 8–13, from ‘Behavior Disorder’ classrooms, were assigned to one of four training conditions: cognitive (self-control) training, behavioral (prosocial skills) training, com...

It is apparent from the varied substance of the chapters in this book that aggression is an overdetermined behavior. There are genetic, constitutional, and environmental factors as well as individual learning history and specific situational events which go into determining whether a person will act in an aggressive manner at any specific time. How...