Adolescents’ reactions to the world trade center destruction: A study of political trauma in metropolitan New York

Abstract

This study examined the emotional response of 110 adolescents living in the New York metropolitan area one month and five months after the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) by terrorists. The purpose of the study was to assess emerging hypotheses in political psychology that suggest that there are differential emotional responses to a national trauma that recede in predictable directions. The results followed predictions and indicate that adolescents experienced a higher level of emotions related to the Crisis and Bereavement dimension than affect associated with Vulnerability and that the emotional response decreased during the four-month follow-up period. There was no effect on emotional response from the biological sex or political orientation of the respondents, which is inconsistent with other studies in the literature. The absence of a political orientation effect is explained in terms of the lack of a domestic ideological difference in response to the terrorist attack.

Quality Insights of University Students on Dying, Death, and Death Education—A Preliminary Study in Hong Kong

“…Death is seldom mentioned in schools except on occasions such as national trauma (Wass, 1984) or local tragedy (Malin & Fowers, 2004) which may relate death to violence. Consistent with the findings of some previous studies (Cheng & Chen, 1999;Malin & Fowers, 2004;Wass, 1984), the university students in this study did not talk about death unless they were confronted by the death of their loved ones or their own impending death.…”

“…Death is seldom mentioned in schools except on occasions such as national trauma (Wass, 1984) or local tragedy (Malin & Fowers, 2004) which may relate death to violence. Consistent with the findings of some previous studies (Cheng & Chen, 1999;Malin & Fowers, 2004;Wass, 1984), the university students in this study did not talk about death unless they were confronted by the death of their loved ones or their own impending death. Most participants have discussed death-related issues with their peers and parents as discussion with parents, peers, and other adults is the most common and effective ways to cope with death (Wolchik, Coxe, Tein, Sandler, & Ayers, 2008;Yang & Chen, 2006).…”

Research Methods in Child Disaster Studies: A Review of Studies Generated by the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks; the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami; and Hurricane Katrina

“…To avoid problems with memory and to enhance the accuracy of data, Kessler et al (2008) recommended short time intervals between assessments (1–6 months) to capture information that reflects the entire post-disaster period that could have been missed if information was collected for specific time points only. In this review, six of the eight longitudinal studies on the September 11 attacks (Garrett et al 2007; Gil-Rivas et al 2007; Holmes et al 2007; Malin and Fowers 2004; Pfeffer et al 2007; Stein et al 2004) and three of the seven longitudinal 2004 Tsunami studies (Hafstad et al 2010; John et al 2007; Piyasil et al 2007) used short time intervals between assessments (6 months or less). Average time intervals were longer (more than 6 months) in all of the longitudinal studies assessing Hurricane Katrina.…”

World Trade Center Health Program: First Decade of Research

“…Mental health effects were more widely studied within the WTC youth population. Early studies described the views and reactions of adolescents to the traumatic events of the WTC disaster [ 107 , 108 , 109 , 110 , 111 ]. PTSD, anxiety, and depression are the top three certified mental health conditions among WTCHP youth members.…”