Well-Being in Times of Crisis

As we witness the immense loss of life and trauma unfolding as a result of oppressive regimes in Palestine and Israel, it is difficult to comprehend the scale of human suffering. Those of us in more peaceful, prosperous parts of the world feel a responsibility to bear witness (at least), and those of us with marginalized identities recognize the struggle of the oppressed and stand in solidarity. While we do what we can to advocate for justice and peace for the oppressed, it is important to also take care of ourselves. As Angela Davis once said, "Anyone who is interested in making change in the world, also has to learn how to take care of herself, himself, theirselves… it means that we are able to being our entire selves into the movement… it means a holistic approach."

Here are some things to consider as you take care of yourself and others during this time of crisis:

Making Sense of Difficult Emotions

Several people I've spoken to have shared how they feel a sense of vicarious trauma, hopelessness, and powerlessness from repeated exposure to the news right now. There is also guilt about the privilege to take a step back from the news when it gets too overwhelming. These feelings are valid and normal responses – it is natural to feel empathic in the face of human suffering as we recognize the interconnectedness between different forms of oppression, and enables us to channel these emotions into action. Give yourself grace as you process difficult emotions in this moment, and engage in emotion regulation strategies—for e.g. reframing occasional unplugging from the news as self-care, while simultaneously committing to leverage your privilege to advocate for the oppressed.

Recognition of Unique Challenges Faced by Marginalized Identities

People around the world are caught in the spillover from the ongoing violence in Gaza. Those belonging to Palestinian, Arab, Jewish, and Muslim communities face unique challenges. Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian region has an effect on heightened discrimination and hate crimes in other countries, as we have seen in the last several days. Moreover, many have family in the region and belong to communities that are directly impacted by the violence—it is important to recognize the heightened mental toll that this can take for marginalized communities and extend support in whatever ways possible. Check on your friends and students, provide accommodations where needed, and make evident your commitment to supporting them through this difficult time.

Relationships and Community Support

As social psychologists, we know that spending time with friends and loved ones has a positive impact on our well-being. And in the current context, it can be incredibly healing and empowering to have interpersonal and collective spaces where we can engage in conversations about the ongoing oppression and its outcome, share how we feel, and process our emotions in a non-judgmental way.

Plan Your Joy and Self-care

At an Obama Foundation event a few years ago, Michelle Obama spoke about "planning our joy". The idea is that we're taught to plan our work, and we do this day in and day out, but we don't plan our joy, when perhaps we should. Exposure to political and global stressors can have a negative impact on well-being. By planning our joy and self-care, beyond combating burnout and preserving our own well-being, we will also be better positioned to help others in more need. These can be simple actions, like scheduling a short meditation or talking a walk in the sun. Boundaries also demonstrate self-care—whether it's a mental health day, restricting your news intake, or turning off your phone for a bit. As Audre Lorde said, "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."

Caring for Others

In this moment, many are compelled to act against the genocide and crimes against humanity by powerful regimes, because we recognize that none of us can be free and well until all of us are free and well. As you figure out your role in this collective fight and how you can leverage your privilege, here are some things to consider—educate yourself about the history of the region from unbiased sources, listen to and elevate the voices of the oppressed, and donate what you can towards humanitarian aid. There is something all of us can do, even in small, seemingly tangential ways, to move the needle towards justice and freedom for all.

Note: Special thanks to Manal Aboargob (PhD student at University of Texas at El Paso), Michelle Lee (PhD student at New York University), and Janice Lim (PhD student at York University) for sharing their insights for this article.

 

People Are Biased Against Victims Who Suffer More

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Well, no, not really. In fact, repeated traumatization makes it harder, not easier, to cope with renewed adversity. Despite this, people often wrongly apply the 'practice makes perfect' mantra to coping with adversity. We call this the habituation fallacy: when it comes to human suffering, the idea that people get habituated to pain is usually wrong, yet many people believe in it.

Although moderate trauma might indeed be linked to more resilience compared to no adversity, the evidence is clear: repeated, severe trauma reduces one's ability to cope. The second loss of a child can be worse than the first, the third violent attack can be more traumatizing than the second, and so on.

In humanitarian emergencies, the habituation fallacy leads potential donors to believe that those with a history of prior suffering have acquired better coping mechanisms and that they, therefore, suffer less from new trauma. This reduces willingness to help victims of repeated misfortune. When potential donors assume that there is not much human agony and suffering to relieve, they see little need to act.

We demonstrated the harmful effects of the habituation fallacy in six studies using a mix of methods to chart responses to a range of fictitious and real-life disasters. For example, in one study participants were asked to indicate how much they thought victims of different disasters were suffering, while we varied what we told participants about the previous victimizations the fictional characters had endured. Consistently, a sizeable majority of participants reported thinking that first-time victims would suffer more than victims who already had a history of surviving previous disasters. In another study, we saw that this belief also reduced willingness to donate money to help them. 

Widespread belief in the habituation fallacy can help explain why emergencies in regions that have previously been relatively prosperous and stable such as Ukraine trigger greater altruism than those with a long history of conflict such as Afghanistan: first-time victims are assumed to suffer more, and they are therefore helped more.

Donors' decisions are of course affected by many things, for example, compassion fatigue or ingroup bias. Alternative explanations in our studies were ruled out by controlling for these factors, giving confidence that effects were indeed attributable to the habituation fallacy. Our studies showed how the habituation fallacy affects decisions to help people of different races and nationalities. The habituation fallacy was important for explaining donors' decisions about helping members of other ethnic groups. 

Knowing about the habituation fallacy might enable donors to be more conscious of their biases and resist them. After all, unless we are conscious of the forces that affect our behavioral choices, it is harder to make different choices. In the context of humanitarian disaster relief, awareness of the habituation fallacy could help reduce donor discrimination against victims who are assumed not to suffer much, but who in fact suffer greatly.


For Further Reading

Zagefka, H. (2022). The habituation fallacy: Disaster victims who are repeatedly victimized are assumed to suffer less, and they are helped less. European Journal of Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2843


Hanna Zagefka is Professor of Social Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research focuses on intergroup processes, especially intergroup helping.

How Stress Can Change Your Mind

Laura was playing a board game with her husband and two small children the night two masked men with guns burst in through her unlocked garage door.  They ordered her family to lie face-down while they ransacked the house.  Even now, seven years later, she vividly remembers the scratchy feeling of the carpet on her cheek and the squeezing terror. And even now, seven years later, she says her view of people has notably dimmed.  Reflecting on the aftermath of this event, Laura, now age 40, says she has a hard time believing that strangers are entirely trustworthy or good.

Laura's sister, Janel, age 43, also remembers a night that changed her life—the evening that she sat at home alone, sobbing, after learning of her diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer earlier that day.  That night, she began mourning all she would miss.  Her two children were grown but not yet married.  They were still exploring careers.  She did not yet have grandchildren.  And the odds were high that she would never get to watch these events unfold.  Yet, in the face of her grief, Janel maintains that life is very much worth living and, moreover, that the world is a fundamentally good place, filled with much more good than bad.

These sisters' stories illustrate the fact that painful experiences are a part of the human experience and that such experiences can sometimes make us question our beliefs about the world.  But when does this happen?  When does experiencing adversity lead us, like Laura, to view the world and people in it as less good?  Conversely, when is it the case that, like Janel, adversity may not affect our core beliefs about the world?

These are questions psychologists have been asking for close to 30 years, but they’ve found it hard to get conclusive answers.  Why?  Because researchers find it difficult to ask people questions about their beliefs about the world—their "worldviews"—both before and after they experience adversity in order to see how their worldviews change.  After all, we rarely see adversity coming. 

But in a study I conducted with my colleague, Roxane Cohen Silver, we managed to do just that.  How?  Not by correctly predicting when adversity would strike, but instead by surveying a large sample of people from across the U.S. at several points in time and counting on the fact that adversity would naturally befall some of them during the course of the study.   In that way, we could measure people's worldviews both before and after they experienced adversity, allowing us to examine factors that predict whether and how people’s worldviews changed.

This research taught us five lessons about when adversity leads people’s worldviews to change:

1)  All adversity is not the same.

Although all adversity is by definition distressing, different kinds of adverse life events can affect worldviews in different ways.  In our research, events that involved negative interactions with other people—such as being the victim of crime or experiencing relationship upheaval—were the most likely to change people's beliefs about the goodness, or "benevolence," of the world.  In contrast, events such as serious illness or injury were most likely to affect the degree to which people perceived the world as fair or controllable.  So, it may not be surprising that crime victim Laura had her views of the goodness of other people tarnished, while Janel, in suffering a serious illness, did not.  But we might have expected Janel to disagree more than most people with the notion that life is fundamentally fair.

2)  Life experience matters.

When we looked at the question of who in our study was most likely to experience worldview change following adversity, such changes were more likely among younger than older adults.  Although our data  did not tell us exactly why this is the case, we think  that sheer life experience—including prior adversity—may shape and strengthen our worldviews such that they are more resistant to change when adversity occurs again in the future.   Although the three-year age gap between Laura and Janel probably isn't big enough for age to make a difference, a bigger difference in age might predict that the older sister would have more stable worldviews.

3)  The consistency of our beliefs can change, too.

When asked to rate their belief in the benevolence, fairness, or controllability of the world, most people have no trouble doing so on any given day.  However, that doesn't mean a given person's beliefs are always the same: your sense that the world is a good place, for example, may fluctuate over time, perhaps depending on your mood, recent social interactions, or even the weather.  But in general, the stronger you hold a belief, the more consistent it tends to be over time. 

In our research, people who experienced more adverse events tended to have benevolence beliefs that were less consistent and that fluctuated more from time to time.  This finding suggests that adversity may not just change what you believe—such as whether the world is good or not—but also how certain you are in your beliefs.  In other words, adversity may make both Laura and Janel more tentative in their conclusions about the world.

4)  Most change is subtle.

An important big picture finding from our research was that changes in people’s beliefs and worldviews  were fairly small, on average.  Although some psychological theories suggest that people's worldviews should radically change, or even "shatter," in the face of adversity, our study did not provide evidence for that.  In all likelihood, while Laura and Janel's views of the world may have shifted in ways notable to them—and detectable by our research—their beliefs after experiencing adversity probably resembled their beliefs beforehand.

5)  Adversity is common

Although this wasn't the original focus of our research, doing this study revealed the proportion of people in our study who did and did not experience adversity between surveys, which were spaced roughly six months apart.  In any given six-month window, between 40% and 50% of people experienced some sort of serious adversity such as illness, injury, the death of a loved one, violence, or other highly stressful event.   This sobering and thought-provoking statistic  can lead us to reflect on our own recent experiences of adversity and how they may have affected our worldviews. 

But, for me, this statistic also serves as a reminder to act with kindness: I never know which of the people I interact with on a given day are walking in a Laura’s or a Janel’s shoes.  I only know that a lot of them surely are.


For Further Reading

Poulin, M. J., & Silver, R. C. (2019). When are assumptions shaken? A prospective, longitudinal investigation of negative life events and worldviews in a national sampleJournal of Research in Personality.

 

Michael Poulin is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University at Buffalo and director of the Stress, Coping, and Prosocial Engagement (SCoPE) Lab.

Repeat Media Exposure To Trauma Worse Than Being There

Most of us have found ourselves glued to the TV or a Twitter feed in the wake of a disaster — just think, the typhoon in the Philippines, Sandy Hook, 9/11. Although we like to stay informed, new research suggests that such repeat exposure is bad for our mental health. The more hours we follow these traumatic events, the greater the psychological stress caused, according to a new study, which looked at the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombers. Excessive media exposure to the event — 6 or more hours a day — actually led to more trauma than that caused by being at or near the marathon.

The researchers surveyed 4,675 adults from Boston, New York and a representative national sample 2 to 4 weeks after the 2013 Boston Marathon to assess their media exposure, direct exposure to the bombings, and their acute stress responses to the bombings. Those exposed to 6 or more hours per day of media coverage of the bombing were 9 times more likely to report symptoms of acute stress, such as hyper-vigilance, than those exposed to less than 1 hour a day.

Roxane Cohen Silver of the University of California, Irvine, studies collective traumas, and just co-authored a paper of the results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. SPSP chatted with Silver about the study — which will be a topic of her talk “Ready and Waiting: Studying Extreme Events in the Real World” at the SPSP annual conference in Austin this February — and her recommendations for keeping up with current events while reducing traumatic stress.

SPSP: How did you personally become interested in studying trauma and media exposure?

Silver: My colleagues and I began a study of the September 11 terrorist attacks over a decade ago. In that study, we saw that the psychological impact of the terrorist attacks extended beyond the directly affected communities of New York and Washington D.C., and we believed that media was a conduit through which these effects were dispersed broadly. A few months ago, we published an article in Psychological Science in which we found that people who watched more than 4 hours a day of 9/11- and Iraq War-related television coverage — in the weeks after the attacks and at the start of the war — reported both acute and post-traumatic stress symptoms over time. In addition, those who watched more than 4 hours a day of 9/11-related coverage in the weeks after the attacks reported more physician-diagnosed physical health ailments 2 to 3 years later.

After the Boston Marathon bombings, it was clear that media exposure now meant more than just “television”. Today, individuals get their news from a variety of traditional media sources (TV, radio, print), but with increasing frequency, individuals seek news content from nontraditional sources, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, as well as through streaming video on news websites. We wondered to what extent this explosion of media exposure after the Boston Marathon bombings might have a similar impact as we saw after 9/11.

SPSP: Were you surprised that extensive media coverage caused more acute trauma for people than being onsite at the marathon? What were you expecting when you first set out?

Silver: As noted above, we had hints from our 9/11 study that media could serve as a powerful mechanism to diffuse the mental health impact of collective traumas like the Boston Marathon Bombings. In our 9/11 research, a substantial number of individuals with indirect exposure, such as those who watched the attacks on live television, reported symptoms both acutely and over the years afterward at levels that were comparable to individuals who experienced the attacks proximally and directly. Nonetheless, we were surprised to see that repeated media exposure to the Boston Marathon Bombings was more strongly associated with acute stress response than having been at the site of the Marathon or knowing someone who was there. That was unexpected.

SPSP: What do you think causes the link between media exposure and trauma to be stronger than witnessing the event firsthand?

Silver: There is mounting evidence in studies conducted by psychologists in other labs that both live and video images of traumatic events can trigger flashbacks and may encourage fear conditioning. When media sources replay graphic images over and over, they may be feeding into a similar process. Direct exposure, however, ends when the event ends. We suspect that extended, repetitive media exposure may turn the acute event into a chronic stressor, with the potential for long-term physiological consequences.

SPSP: Did you find any differences between exposure to social media versus traditional media?And did the study include any analysis of social media related to the bombings?

Silver: We collected data on the use of social media after the Boston Marathon Bombing as well as the content of images seen on both broadcast and social media. At this point we have not yet completed these statistical analyses. I hope to have done so by the SPSP meeting.

SPSP: Do your research interests change the way you watched media coverage of events such as the marathon bombing?

Silver: I do not watch any television and I have not done so for many, many years. I do not watch YouTube videos; I do not have a Facebook account, nor do I have a Twitter account. I read a lot about the news online, but I do not watch streaming video on my computer screen or Smartphone; I do not look at graphic pictures. On this topic, I live what I preach.

SPSP: How do you recommend people stay informed on current events while minimizing trauma from media exposure?

Silver: That is an excellent question. We see no evidence that single or minimal exposure – one or two hours a day – to media information is problematic. Instead, our new findings contribute to the growing body of research suggesting that there is no psychological benefit to repeated exposure to graphic images of horror.

SPSP: Some people suggest that engaging with such media coverage for 6 or more hours a day seems quite high – is this atypical behavior?

Silver: The average number of combined hours our sample was engaged with media was about 4.7, so while 6 or more hours is above average, it’s not deviant. And, we are not merely talking about television here. Someone could have streaming news on their computer screen while they are working, they could have the radio on in the background, they can be checking Facebook or Twitter on and off, and watch a few hours of television at the end of the day – we are talking about combined exposure of 6 or more hours throughout the day. We do not believe that people who engage in such behavior are more likely to have a preexisting mental health condition or a predisposition for experiencing negative psychological responses. Society as a whole is simply more ‘wired’ than it used to be, and we may be less aware of the potential impact of this media exposure.

SPSP: How does this most recent study fit into the larger body of research on coping with traumas?

Silver: My colleagues and I have conducted a number of studies of collective traumas over the past 20 years: We have studied the impact of both natural (earthquakes, firestorms) and man-made disasters (school shootings, terrorist attacks) in the United States and abroad (Chile, Indonesia). Across our studies, we have found that the psychological impact of these events tends not to be limited only to individuals directly affected. Moreover, the degree of psychological response tends not to be explained simply by the degree of exposure to or loss from the trauma. That is, across our program of research we have not seen a clear dose-response relationship: The degree of emotional response tends not to be proportional to the degree of exposure, amount of loss, or proximity to the trauma — as “objective” loss decreases, we do not see a corresponding decrease in distress. Our new study fits within that framework in that we again see that direct exposure is not necessarily the strongest predictor of psychological response to a collective trauma.

-Lisa M.P. Munoz

*This post was originally published on Dec. 9, 2013 to spsp.org