Fargas-Malet, M., & Dillenburger, K. (2016). Intergenerational transmission of conflict-related trauma in Northern Ireland: A behaviour analytic approach. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 25(4), 436-454. doi:10.1080/10926771.2015.1107172
[Abstract]Intergenerational transmission of trauma describes the impact that traumatic events experienced by one generation have for the subsequent generation. In Northern Ireland, violent conflict raged between 1969 and 1998, when a peace process begun. This study explored to what extent (if any) parents’ experiences of the conflict influenced how children perceived life in this society. Parents completed a questionnaire, and their children drew 2 pictures, depicting Northern Ireland now and before they were born. Children’s behaviors and awareness of the conflict were influenced by their parents’ experiences and narratives, their age, gender, and school. Parental narrative about the violence was influenced by individual learning history, the child’s age and gender, and present circumstances. A behavior analytic approach is offered.
[Citing Place (1988b)]  
Citing Place (1988b) in context (citations start with an asterisk *):
Section Intergenerational transmission of trauma
* We propose that the science of Behaviour Analysis offers the foundation of a comprehensive new understanding of intergenerational transmission of trauma. Behaviour analysis embraces generality, testability, external validity, accuracy, utility, and parsimony (Schlinger, 1995). Relying on well-established principles of behaviour (Cooper, Herron, & Heward, 2009), public as well as private (i.e., emotions and cognitions) behaviours are explored using detailed functional contingency analyses (cf. Dillenburger & Keenan, 2012). For example, the fact that across generations, trauma-related memories are transmitted through stories, films, books, etc. is viewed as verbal behaviour of the “speaker” that impacts on the behaviour of a linguistically competent “listener” (i.e., rulegoverned behaviour, which is behaviour controlled by a verbal antecedent) (Place, 1988). However, rule-governed behaviour is qualitatively different from behaviour learned through first-hand experience (i.e., contingency-shaped behaviour), which is illustrated by the phenomenon that the behavioural repertoire of the second generation is never exactly the same as that of the first generation (Dillenburger, 2008). In other words, historical, collectively and socially transmitted “memory” is never as rich and individually meaningful as personally experienced biographies (Halbwachs, 1992).