Emotional and Cognitive Influence in Extraordinary Situations : Psychological Study of Responses with Content Analysis Methods

Abstract

The experience of extraordinary situation influences the whole personality. Nowadays the dominant crises – events such as war, natural disasters, economic crises and terrorism – affect an individual’s emotional, cognitive and behavioural responses. The emerging security challenges require adequate prevention strategies and crisis intervention, which involves the analysis of the psychological processes with modern methods. This paper shows the effectiveness of the psychological methods in the management of such situations. The article is divided into several parts; the first part is a general definition of special situations, the second is the presentation of the emotional and physiological consequences, while the third deals with the description of the cognitive aspects. The final part of the study attends to the psychological content analysis in emergencies as a possible research area.