Children in the United States are exposed to considerable community violence that has been linked to child functioning. However, not all those exposed, experience negative outcomes. Recent research has focused on factors that "buffer" or protect children from negative consequences of violence exposure. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the potential buffering or moderating role of maternal acceptance in the relationship between community violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing problems. Subjects were 268 urban African American first graders. Community violence exposure was significantly related to symptoms of post-traumatic stress, but did not correlate with either internalizing or externalizing problems for all children, after control for demographics, maternal mental health, and general life stress. However, children's perceptions of maternal acceptance moderated the relationship between violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing problems which included being withdrawn, anxious-depressed, and demonstrating delinquent behavior. Children with the lowest levels of self-reported maternal acceptance were most impacted by community violence. In this sample of urban first graders, low levels of maternal acceptance placed children at greater risk for adverse outcomes associated with community violence exposure compared to moderate and high levels of maternal acceptance.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships between perceived maternal rejection and psychological distress of adolescents. In addition to that, mediator roles of early maladaptive schemas in this relationship were explored. A total of 356 second-grade high school students (198 females and 158 males) were participated in the study. Participants ranged in age from 15 to 18 (M = 16.17, SD= 0.53). Data was collected by a questionnaire packet consisting Demographic data form, Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ), Parental Acceptance and Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ) , trait part of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T), trait part of State-Trait Anger Inventory (ANG-T) Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Preceding the main analyses, factor analysis for YSQ was performed. It yielded three higher-order factors for YSQ as Impaired Limits- Exaggerated Standards, Disconnection-Rejection, and Impaired Autonomy-Other Directedness. Following factor analysis, ANOVAs were employed to assess differences between adolescents perceiving high acceptance and high rejection in terms of psychological distress measures (i.e., anger, positive affect, negative affect, and anxiety). It was found that adolescents perceiving high rejection were more likely to experience anger, negative affect, and anxiety than those perceiving high acceptance. In order to test whether Impaired Limits-Exaggerated Standards, Disconnection-Rejection, and Impaired Autonomy-Other Directedness mediate the relationship between perceptions of maternal rejection and adolescents&rsquo / anger, positive affect, negative affect, and anxiety respectively, separate hierarchical regression analyses were conducted as suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986). Mediation analyses revealed in general that both maternal rejection and schema domains had main effects on psychological distress measures. However, none of the schema domains did mediate the relationship between maternal rejection and psychological distress measures except for the disconnection-rejection schema domain. The result revealed that disconnection-rejection schema domain mediated the relationship between maternal rejection and anger. These findings were discussed with reference to the relevant literature. Future research topics were suggested and therapeutic implications of the study were discussed.