NSF And 9/11 >> Tracking Personal Impact Over Time
To help understand the emotional impact of Sept. 11, psychologist Roxane Cohen Silver (now on the Academe and Policy Research Senior Advisory Committee for the Department of Homeland Security) and her colleagues at the University of California at Irvine conducted the only longitudinal national investigation of emotional, cognitive and social responses to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They began collecting data within two weeks of the attacks, conducted a follow-up survey two months later, and then followed up at six month intervals for three years.
The researchers found that the attacks have had a widespread impact on people across the country—whether or not they were directly affected. Each individual’s response depended upon certain factors, such as prior traumatic life experience, traumas experienced in the years after the attacks, strategies for coping with the attacks and their aftermath, and prior diagnosis of mental health difficulties. The study also suggested that people who responded to the Sept. 11 attacks with acute stress were likely to respond similarly to the war in Iraq.
Despite the negative impacts of Sept. 11, many people also reported unexpected positive consequences, including closer relationships with family members and a greater appreciation of the freedoms offered in the United States.
From interviews with people who were not themselves victims of the terrorist attacks, Suzanne Thompson of Pomona College in California and her research team learned that many people continued to experience anxiety, fear of flying and fear for safety two years later.
Those who took steps to reduce their risk of being a victim in the future had higher levels of distress than those who focused on understanding why the attacks happened and why their future personal risk was low.
To better understand the impact of continuing stress, Lisa Feldman Barrett of Boston College and Michele Tugade, now of Vassar College, studied why certain people are particularly resilient under the stresses of an ongoing threat. The scientists found that positive emotions after Sept. 11 predicted greater emotional complexity—the tendency to experience discrete emotional states, as opposed to broader positive or negative moods—in response to other traumatic events.
Barrett and Tugade found that people who express a broad array of emotions have a broader repertoire of behavioral and coping responses available to them, and are more likely to be resilient in the face of stress. Based on this study, the researchers believe that emotional complexity may be an important factor associated with resilience, positive emotions and emotion regulation.
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