Social Media and News Coverage as Vicarious Exposure

Fallahi, Carolyn R.

doi:10.1002/9781119048015.ch8

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 69 publications

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“…In contrast, setting boundaries via healthy selfishness-most often seen among the sample's meteorologists, particularly those in the NWSwas associated with fewer experiences of self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing, and overall CERQ score-findings which converge with other research on the relationships between wellbeing, altruism, and selfishness (Carlson et al, 2022;Crocker et al, 2017;Kaufman & Jauk, 2020;Öz Soysal & Bakalim, 2022). Setting boundaries where possible, such as disaster media consumption when off work (Comstock & Platania, 2017;Fallahi, 2016;Liu & Liu, 2020), may be one way meteorologists can mitigate mental health challenges.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Brief Look at Vicarious Trauma in Meteorologists and Emergency Management Professionals: Preliminary Evidence, Associated Coping Behaviors, Emotion Regulation Strategies, Pathological Altruism, and Healthy Selfishness

Bolton,

Ault,

Burton

et al. 2024

Preprint

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This paper briefly and preliminarily examines, based on data collected in mid-2020, vicarious traumatization in 154 meteorologists and emergency managers. This topic is of great importance, considering that weather-focused individuals providing disaster and even more routine weather forecast support may take on variations of the stress they witness in or that they imagine exists for their constituents, leading to myriad negative mental health outcomes. The study explores this phenomenon, focusing on the collaborative nature of the weather enterprise and the proximity of emergency management personnel to meteorological contexts. Despite moderate levels of vicarious traumatization in the weather enterprise, at least as evidenced within this sample, findings suggest relative stability in individual differences across meteorological employment sectors, with no substantial trends. Differences emerged in pathological altruism and overall mental health coping scores, with emergency management professionals scoring higher in the former and television-broadcast meteorologists in the latter. Generally, emergency management professionals exhibit higher pathological altruism compared to government and broadcast meteorologists, suggesting that meteorologists place relatively healthy boundaries between themselves and their work and thus buffering negative mental health outcomes. Overall and speaking preliminarily, meteorologists seem fairly psychologically resilient in the face of vicarious traumatization.

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