Relationship between exposure to community violence and psychological distress: Linear or curvilinear?

This paper presents data testing the hypothesis that the relationship between exposure to recurring community violence during high school years and later experiencing of psychological distress symptoms is a quadratic curvilinear one. Data were collected between 1994-1996 by self-administered questionnaires using multiitem scales; the sample (N=452) comprises older urban adolescents. Although exposure to community violence was positively and linearly related to psychological distress, no statistically significant quadratic curvilinear relationship was found between community violence and psychological distress.