Children who reported seeing violent acts like beatings or shootings or
who had to stay inside their homes to avoid gangs and drugs were more likely
to be considered aggressive by their teachers and classmates in first through
sixth grades.
The effects of community violence on the children’s
thoughts show up later, in the fourth through sixth grades, according
to Nancy C. Guerra,
Ph.D., of the University of California, Riverside and colleagues.
The researchers say that aggressive fantasies — particularly among
girls — and beliefs that aggression is acceptable and normal are
more common among these children.
However, they caution that children vary “substantially” in
these measures of aggression, which suggests that they are influenced
by other factors besides community violence.
“It goes without saying that the first line of prevention is to
reduce the levels of violence in the community and elsewhere to minimize
children’s exposure to violence. However, to the extent that children
continue to observe violence, it is also critical to recognize that it
does have a significant and harmful impact on their development,” Guerra
says.
The study included information from 4,458 students enrolled in 21 Chicago-area
elementary schools from 1991 to 1997. All of the children lived in urban
neighborhoods with high rates of violent crime.
For the most part, the aggressive children were not more likely to be
exposed to further violence in their neighborhoods. The one exception,
say the researchers, were boys who had high rates of aggressive fantasies
and who may have sought chances to watch real violence.
Guerra and colleagues also found that girls increased their aggressive
fantasies more than boys as they got older, possibly in response to social
pressures that make public acts of aggression less acceptable among females.
The study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
