The effects of violence on the psychological development of black adolescents

• Published: 2008
• Subjects: Black teenagers; Political violence; Adolescent psychology; Stress (Psychology); Stress in adolescence; Psychic trauma in adolescence; Resilience (Personality trait) in adolescence
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/1640

M.A. === All transitional stages have their moments of crises, but there is no stage so complicated and confusing as the adolescence. Not surprisingly, many researchers refer to this stage as a period of storm and stress. Many studies conducted on young people and violence have concentrated on their psychological, emotional, and physical development. Hence, the psychosocial development did not receive much attention from the psychological fraternity. Therefore, the aim of this study is three fold: (1) to investigate how political violence affects the psychosocial development of adolescents.(2) to investigate how political violence affects their outlook on life, and (3) how do they view the youth=s role in political struggle. The qualitative research method was used in this study. The process of inquiry involves interviews. Individual face-to-face interviews were conducted with 30 research participants. The process of analysis involved thematic content analysis. Generally, the results of the study indicate that exposure to political violence has negative effects on the psychosocial development of the adolescents. Many of them experience psychosocial problems in some areas of their development, while very few show signs of psychosocial resilience in other areas and function well despite exposure to political adversity. In conclusion, these adolescents are neither shattered by exposure to political violence to be considered Apsychosocially dysfunctional@, nor they are resilient enough to be considered Auntouched@ by these experiences. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that the effects of political violence are relative rather than absolute and are bound to change with circumstances.