Contextual and Personal Predictors of Adaptive Outcomes Under Terror Attack: The Case of Israeli Adolescents

This paper explores individual differences in perceptions of political violence, strategies for coping with violence, and adaptive outcomes. Data on political violence stress, personal variables, coping strategies, and stress reactions were gathered on a sample of 227 Israeli adolescents in Haifa and Northern Israel confronted with a prolonged period of terror attack in the course of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Political violence stress and trait anxiety were shown to be meaningful predictors of both coping strategies and adaptive outcomes. Although adolescents reported employing more avoidance coping, on average, than other coping modes, it was primarily the use of emotion-focused coping efforts that predicted stress reactions. The observation that problem-focused coping did not meaningfully alleviate stress reactions may have been a function of the uncontrollable nature and severity of the community stressor. The data were discussed and explicated in the context of stress and coping theory and research. Professor and Dean of Research and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Emotions, Haifa University, Mt. Carmel, Israel.     

Effects of group intervention on moral development of distressed youths in Israel

The effects of a positive peer culture (PPC) program [H. H. Vorrath and L. K. Brendatro (1974),Positive Peer Culture, Aladin, Chicago, Illinois] upon the moral development of youths in distress within the framework of streetcorner gangs was measured. This group was compared with two control groups, one related and the other unrelated to the participants. Moraldevelopment measures used in this study—resistance to temptation, moral stage, feeling after offense, punishment, and confession [A. Ziv (1976), Measuring aspects of morality.J. Moral Educ. 5: 189–201]—indicated a positive effect upon the participants, and for some moral indices, on their friends' moral development (the related group). The potential effect upon moral development of such a program and the possibility of working with representatives of youth-in-distress groups in order to produce change are stressed.He received his B. A. from the University of Haifa, and his M.S.W. and D.S.W. from the University of Pennsylvania. His professional interests: criminal justice, juvenile delinquency, and the administration of human service organizations.     

Presentation of a three-banded allele pattern--analysis and interpretation

The Israel police forensic biology laboratory received as an item of evidence in an attempted murder case, a pair of trousers belonging to a suspect. A bloodstain was observed on the trousers and analyzed by STR typing for nine loci using the Promega GenePrint STR silver stain detection kits. The genetic profile defined was found to be identical to that of the victim's at all nine loci. Within this profile a three-banded allele pattern was observed at the D16S539 locus, both in the bloodstain and in the victim's reference blood sample. Confirmation of this phenomenon was accomplished by amplifying the extracted DNA from both the trousers and the victim's blood sample using the PowerPlex 16 kit by Promega and the AmpFlSTR SGM Plus kit by Perkin Elmer, followed by analysis of the amplification products by capillary electrophoresis on the ABI prism 310 genetic analyzer. The same three-banded allele pattern was observed at the D16S539 locus in both specimen and reference DNA, using each of the three kits. Three additional loci located on chromosome 16 (D16S3407, D16S2617 and D16S3082), not employed for forensic identification, were also analyzed and did not show three-banded allele pattern.