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Abstract
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Exposure to violence (ETV) is an unfortunately common experience among adolescents (Finkelhor et al., 2015), with lasting implications such as poorer physical and mental health (Borofsky et al., 2013; McLaughlin et al., 2016), increased substance use (Vermeiren et al., 2003; Wright & Fagan, 2013), and notably future perpetration of violence (Fox et al., 2014; Maas et al., 2008; Smith & Thornberry, 1995). This is especially true among youth who are justice-involved (Dierkhising et al., 2013). Decades of research have linked ETV with an increased likelihood of engagement in violent and aggressive behavior across contexts (Brown et al., 2019; Fehon et al., 2005), and correspondingly, justice-involved youth who engage in violence often report higher rates of ETV (Fox et al., 2015; Wagers et al., 2020).
However, the cycle of violence does not describe an inevitable pattern. Although there are high rates of prior ETV among individuals who engage in violence, many youth who report violence exposure do not engage in violence at all (Wright et al., 2016). It is thus important to understand for whom ETV is most salient and which factors might amplify or protect against its damaging effects. Prior research has explored whether contextual factors may moderate the association between ETV and subsequent violence, such as concentrated disadvantage (Wright & Fagan, 2013), but individual-level factors may also play a role. One potentially important moderating factor for the cycle of violence is sensory processing sensitivity. Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a concept that describes how an individual's sensitivity to context, or their attentiveness and responsivity to their environment (Aron & Aron, 1997), impacts the neural processing of sensory and emotional experiences (Acevedo et al., 2017; Jagiellowicz et al., 2010). This sensitivity exists on a continuum, with some individuals more or less susceptible to features of their environment than others (Ellis et al., 2011; Pluess, 2015). The SPS framework implies that highly sensitive youth may be more affected by their environment than less sensitive youth, due to more intensive, reflective processing.
This sensory processing sensitivity may affect how youth respond to violent contexts. Research on both adolescents and adults suggests that sensitivity to context may be especially influential in understanding how individuals respond to negative environmental experiences. For example...
Language: en |