A Framework: Review of Research from a Developmental Psychopathology Perspective

Abstract

Our view is that a diverse body of research, with often varying goals and research designs, merit being embraced as contributing to a foundation of understanding of the problems for youth in these contexts. In this chapter, we outline a framework for organizing, evaluating, and integrating the contributions of the diverse worldwide literature on political violence, armed conflict, and youth adjustment. Selecting from among the best several hundred studies from a vast literature, we sort noteworthy published research in terms of a four-tiered pyramid that “builds up” to a goal of targeted prevention and intervention from a translational research perspective: (a) studies rigorously documenting youth outcomes in worldwide contexts of political violence and armed conflict (Tier 1); (b) research that additionally explores various hypotheses and concepts for explanatory variables and the impact of social-ecological contexts, using cross-sectional designs (Tier 2); (c) a select group of studies, conducted in a limited number of contexts of political violence and armed conflict to date, that empirically tests the role of underlying mechanisms and social-ecological contexts, using longitudinal designs (Tier 3); and (d) literature testing and evaluating prevention and intervention programs, including the limited number of extant studies meeting the highly meritorious and demanding criteria for translational research (Tier 4). The search strategy employed to identify this extensive literature, including the bases for excluding many studies from consideration, is described. In this book, we use this four-tiered “research pyramid,” which builds on the tenets of developmental psychopathology, to organize and evaluate the contributions of research to our understanding of youth adjustment in these contexts.