Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was initially conceptualized as a psychopathology that arose as a consequence of war time experiences. More recently, available evidence has demonstrated that post‐traumatic stress (PTS) as a consequence of war is buffered by social identity processes. In such contexts, identity resources are arguably more readily accessible given the integral relationship between social identities and intergroup violence. There is no evidence as yet to suggest that social identity processes may act to reduce PTS responses to naturally occurring disasters such as earthquakes and even less data pertaining to non‐Western contexts where the impact of such disasters tends to be particularly catastrophic. This article reports on a study undertaken in earthquake‐affected regions in Nepal devastated by the April 2015 quake and its major aftershock a month later. Participants (n=399) completed measures of their earthquake experience, Post‐Traumatic Stress and Post Traumatic growth (PTG), as well as measures of community identification and collective efficacy. In total 399 people completed the measures approximately six months after the quakes. Results of the study indicated that consistent with tenets of the social identity framework, ethnic and gender group memberships impacted on reported experiences during the earthquake. Reported experience during the quakes and ethnic group membership were both related to increased symptoms of PTS. Ethnicity was also linked to the proportion of respondents reporting clinical levels of PTSD symptoms. The relationship between earthquake experience and PTG was mediated by community identification and collective efficacy. Earthquake experience also had an indirect effect on PTS through collective efficacy. Implications of these findings for those working with traumatized groups are discussed.
As with the identification and labelling of many mental health problems, the adoption of PTSD within DSM can be said to arise from contemporaneous social and political contexts: specifically the return to the United States of many war‐affected veterans from Vietnam (Scott, 1993). The specific circumstances of the recognition of PTSD within DSM‐III have led several commentators to discuss it in terms of social construction (e.g., Summerfield, 2001). The current review argues that the orientation of theory and research aimed at understanding PTSD has been particularly informed by Western individualistic constructions of social phenomena. Our review calls for a blending of approaches to understanding post‐traumatic stress by considering the social structures and contexts in which it is expressed and in particular by considering how a group‐level analysis can inform incidence, diagnosis, and expression of post‐traumatic symptoms.
The growing popularity of English national insignia in international football tournaments has been widely interpreted as evidence of the emergence of a renewed English national consciousness. However, little empirical research has considered how people in England actually understand football support in relation to national identity. Interview data collected around the time of the Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup tournaments fail to substantiate the presumption that support for the England football team maps onto claims to patriotic sentiment in any straightforward way. People with far-right political affiliations did generally use national football support to symbolise a general pride in English national identity. However, other people either claimed not to support the England national team precisely because of its associations with nationalism, or else bracketed the domain of football support from more general connotations of English patriotism.Far more important than anything that happened on the field was the sudden liberation of an English national identity. It looks as if the English are finally allowed to start loving themselves. The sting has been drawn out of the flag of St George. All the old connotations -that a red cross on a white background meant a mindset that was white, racist, boozy, xenophobic, exclusive -has gone out of the window . . . The last few months have seen an extraordinary outpouring of national feeling, . . . That simple red and white flag stands for passion, dignity, humour, tolerance, stoicism, creativity, courage and more. We are told so often that this country is not what it was, that we should all just shut up and learn to be European. But over the past two weeks we have learned what it means to be English (Daily Mirror, 24 June 2002).The relationship between football and nationhood has received considerable attention within the social sciences. While some theorists have focused on this relationship in terms of the historical origins of football (Armstrong and
The attempt to regenerate city centres has led to the creation of a ‘night‐time economy’ (NTE) based around alcohol‐led entertainment. This has been accompanied by an increase of violence. Using insights from social identity research on collective action, we argue that NTE violence can be viewed as a group‐level phenomenon. Twenty focus groups were conducted with participants who socialise together (total number of participants = 53). Participants discussed their experiences of the NTE, including violence. A thematic analysis of the transcripts drew out four ways in which NTE violence is discussed in group terms: intergroup violence, intragroup violence, intragroup intervention (escalation) and intragroup intervention (regulation). The analysis reveals that groups can have both negative and positive roles in NTE violence, including regulating fellow group members away from violence. In demonstrating the importance of intragroup regulation of violence in the NTE, we extend social identity research beyond the focus on intergroup crowd violence and reveal the practical potential of harnessing such processes in anti‐violence interventions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has always been controversial and highly politicized. Here, using a social identity approach, we review evidence that trauma and its aftermath are fundamentally linked to social position, sociopolitical capital, and power. We begin this contribution by demonstrating how a person's group memberships (and the social identities they derive from these memberships) are inherently linked to the experience of adversity. We then go on to consider how it is through group memberships that individuals are defined by their trauma risk and trauma histories—that is, a person's group memberships and their trauma are often inherently linked. Considering the importance of group memberships for understanding trauma, we argue that it is important to see these, and group processes more generally, as more than just “demographic” risk factors. Instead, we argue that when groups are defined by their trauma history or risk, their members will often derive some sense of self from this trauma. For this reason, attributes of group memberships are important in developing an understanding of adjustment and adaptation to trauma. In particular, groups' status, their recourse to justice, and the level of trust and solidarity within the group are all central to the impact of traumatic events on individual‐level psychological resilience. We review evidence that supports this analysis by focusing on the exacerbating effects of stigma and social mistrust on post‐traumatic stress, and the value of solidarity and strong identities for resilience. We conclude that because of these group‐related processes, trauma interweaves the personal with the political and that post‐traumatic stress is fundamentally about power, positionality, and politics.
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