Urban youth are exposed to staggering amounts of community violence, and researchers have identified psychological ramifications associated with this exposure. Yet some have found no relationship between exposure and distress and have argued for habituation. Little attention, however, has focused on how assessment methods have contributed to these conflicting findings. Although most of the research has relied on self-report measures, these assessment tools have systematic limitations. First, these measures are susceptible to a defensive test-taking approach, characterized by a denial of stress-related symptoms. Second, symptom-based assessment tools may have limited utility with youth experiencing affective blunting associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Third, these instruments are context free and fail to consider environmental influences on behavior. To address these concerns, we advocate using Goldfried and D'Zurilla's behavior analytic model to create tools to identify how youth and their parents cope with context-specific problems following exposure to violence.
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