The Impacts of Terrorism - Research Paper Example

Journal article reviews on terrorism 25 August Introduction Two articles investigated the impacts of terrorism on specific populations. The first article is “The Effects of Terrorism: The Aftermath of the London Terror Attacks” by Bux and Coyne (2009) and the second article is “The Impact of the Madrid Bombing on Personal Emotions, Emotional Atmosphere and Emotional Climate” by Conejero and Etxebarria (2007). This paper compared and contrasted the aims, major points, population, sampling strategy, research design, literature review, and boundaries of these two articles. These studies have some similarities in their major findings, particularly where negative emotions were higher one week after the terrorist events than a few months after it; nevertheless, some negative emotions have not fully lessened, such as sadness and perceived risks, even months after these events. They agreed that the level of negativity should be causes of concern for the affected governments, so that they could proactively help their people deal with such emotional events. Research Aims These two articles are similar, because they wanted to understand how terrorist activities affected the emotional dimensions of individuals and communities. They also both aimed for their research to guide government interventions in managing the social responses to such traumatic experiences, so that they could also promote the psychological welfare of the affected communities. Still, they have differences in their specific research aims, since they utilise significantly different psychological constructs and there were also some differences in overall implications. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) aimed to examine the emotional impact of the 2004 Madrid Bombing on a particular set of communities. They specifically measured the impacts of the bombing on “personal emotions,” “emotional atmosphere,” and “perception of emotional climate,” so that they could have a better understanding of how these measures can improve their effectiveness in predicting human responses to traumatic social events, and in particular, use these findings to promote peace in high-conflict and high-risk areas. They also studied the relationship among “personal emotions,” the “emotional atmosphere,” and the “perception of emotional climate.” Bux and Coyne (2009) focused on “resilience” and “religious faith” as coping mechanisms in similar social contexts, based on their proposed structural equation model (SEM) that combined the constructs of “emotions,” “perceived risk,” “resilience” and “religious faith.” Unlike Conejero and Etxebarria (2007), they wanted to emphasise the role of individual coping mechanisms in handling stress from socially traumatic events. They also aimed to focus more on the connection between resilience and positive emotions, so that the government can study how it can increase resilience during these difficult times and employ other coping mechanisms to help alleviate social trauma. Population These studies have different target populations, since they analysed traumatic social events located in different nations. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) studied the impact of the 2004 Madrid Bombing on the individual and social emotional levels of the people, while Bux and Coyne (2009) studied the individual psychological reactions of a community in England to the London Bombings in July 2005. In addition, Bux and Coyne (2009) took efforts to exclude those who are directly linked to the attacks, since they wanted to concentrate on the indirect effects of terrorism for their chosen population. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) also had a larger sampling consisting of 1,807 people from seven autonomous regions in Spain, while Bux and Coyne (2009) recruited only 338 respondents and from a smaller community. Sampling Strategy The articles both used opportunity sampling to recruit their participants. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) employed this non-probability sampling to gather respondents who came mainly from universities. Bux and Coyne (2009) recruited their respondents using opportunity sampling from numerous sectors of the community, such as business, residential areas, education, religious faith groups and others. Research Design The two studies had similarities in the research design, because they both used psychological instruments to measure their constructs, but they differed in most of the kinds of instruments used and the nature of research. They also both used quantitative research design to test their hypotheses regarding the relationships among their constructs. The only similar instrument that they used is Izard’s Differential Emotion Scale (DES). Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) conducted a more quantitative research, as they utilised three different questionnaires to measure “personal emotions,” the “emotional atmosphere,” and the “perception of emotional climate” of the population. The instruments they used are the following: Izard’s Differential Emotion Scale (DES) for measuring personal emotions and the emotional atmosphere; Emotional Climate Scale (ECS) for measuring the emotional climate; a 5-point scale to measure group identification; six items to measure avoidance behaviours and two items to assess intergroup avoidance; and five items to assess altruistic behaviours. These instruments are assessed to have moderate reliability levels, as the researchers revealed themselves. Bux and Coyne (2009) added a greater level of qualitative dimension to their research, by including an “open-ended response” instrument that collected the “personal feelings, experiences, or emotions in relation to the July 7, 2005, London attacks” (p.2944). They also used the broaden-and-build theory in their research. Other instruments they used are: Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire–Revised to measure religious faith; Differential Emotions Scale–Modified to asses emotions; a 26-item resilience scale to measure resilience; and a revised Lerner et al.’s perceived risk scale to measure perceived risks. Authors noted that the scales used had good internal reliability scores. Literature Review These two articles had similar literature reviews, where they both reviewed the studies that used the same constructs. As a result, they were able to define the gap in literature and what they can do fill this gap. They also used literature to define their constructs and to also broaden the conceptualisation of these constructs. For instance, Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) reviewed the literature on emotions and political violence and the relationship between personal emotions and the emotional climate. They did not provide a separate literature review of their concepts, however, unlike Bux and Coyne (2009) who extensively reviewed their constructs more with a separate chapter on literature review. For instance, for “resilience,” Bux and Coyne (2009) showed how literature used this concept in times of “general stress” and terrorist activities. Through their review of literature, they also realised the need for a broader model that will provide a more complete picture of individual responses to terrorism, by including “negative emotions, perceived risk, and religious faith” (p.2939). They also discovered that there was little study done on the relationship between “negative emotions” and “resilience.” Analyses Both studies used statistical analyses in understanding their data. For analysis, Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) utilised mean scores or the Cronbach’s alpha, while Bux and Coyne (2009) employed regression procedure for their SEM. Bux and Coyne (2009) also tested predictions using AMOS. Furthermore, Bux and Coyne (2009) applied qualitative content analysis to examine their respondents answers to open-ended questionnaires. Bux and Coyne (2009) tried to increase internal validity through conducting a preliminary coding check on a random sample of 20% of their questionnaires. Kappa coefficients showed an “initial agreement level of .69, very close to the proposed acceptable level of .70” (Bakerman and Gottman 1986 cited in Bux and Coyne 2009, p.2951). Major Points There are differences in several major points, especially since these studies involved different constructs and research designs, although they were both concerned of evaluating the general and individual state of “emotions” after terrorist activities. Still, both used two time lines to compare emotional responses. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) measured emotions one week after the event and then two months after the attack, while Bux and Coyne (2009) collected responses from November 2005 to March 2006, which basically included measuring emotional responses a week after the London attacks and then four to six months thereafter. This means that they approached the same topic of emotional responses through gathering information using two different time lines. These articles also showed varied findings in the role of individual and collective emotional factors in influencing collective emotional responses. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) depicted that individual emotions had little impact on the emotional climate, because the emotional climate is more stable than the emotional atmosphere, while Bux and Coyne (2009) noted that individual coping mechanisms generally affected how people perceived and reacted to terrorist events. Resilience, nevertheless, lessened the effects of negative emotions, but this was stronger months after the event than immediately after it. In addition, Bux and Coyne (2009) demonstrated that negative emotions correlated with higher perceived risk, but positive emotions did not decrease perceived risk. This implicated that positive emotions did not positively influence perceived ability to handle future events, which contradicted prior research. Furthermore, religious faith influenced only emotional outcomes, but not perceived risk. Bux and Coyne (2009) believed that religious faith did not have a large impact on negative emotions, but religious people still were more able to assign “positive meaning” to adverse events in their lives (p.2957). These studies also differed on how people made sense of their emotions after the terrorist attacks. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) focused on nationalist sentiments, while Bux and Coyne (2009) emphasised the use of resilience and religious beliefs in managing negative emotions. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) noted that feelings of solidarity helped improve positive emotions. The level of identification with the Spanish population affected the personal negative emotional response of the people. For instance, since there are strong nationalist sentiments in Basque, they reported lower personal negative emotional response than those who had stronger identification with the Spanish population. In terms of emotional atmosphere, there were higher levels of hostility and sadness than fear. There was little improvement in emotional atmosphere weeks after the attacks. Negative emotions did not weaken in the same rate across the tested time periods. Sadness continued to pervade more than fear, anger, disgust, and contempt. The emotional climate showed a “perception of a climate of solidarity or mutual aid, freedom of speech, fear/anxiety, and hope” (p.284). Bux and Coyne (2009) stressed the importance of resilience and religion to alleviating negative emotions both immediately after and months after the terrorist attacks. These studies, moreover, agreed that “positive” emotions are low after these attacks. Bux and Coyne (2009) stressed that even “resilient” people did not have more positive emotions after the attacks. The study by Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) showed that one week after the attacks, there were high levels of “sadness, disgust, anger, and contempt” (p.283). In the second time period of data collection for both studies, negative emotions subsided, nevertheless, and Bux and Coyne (2009) showed positive effects of religious belief and resilience on handling negative emotions. Findings of Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) further showed that there is a closer relationship between “personal emotions” and “perceived emotions,” but the latter was more intense than the former. The sampling tended to project their emotions unto others and perceived that they had greater emotional control. In addition, personal emotions affected the emotional atmosphere more than the emotional climate. There was also no strong predictive effect of personal emotions on the emotional climate in the study done by Conejero and Etxebarria (2007). Authors admitted that this was lower than they expected and that findings confirmed past studies. Nevertheless, they stressed that measuring negative personal emotions will remain critical in predicting personal behaviours. Conejero and Etxebarria (2007) concluded that governments should pay attention to the construction of positive emotional climates, particularly in areas where peace-building efforts exist. Boundaries Both studies focused on “negative emotions” after terrorist attacks. This is based on the underlying notion that the general sentiment of the people would be “normally” negative under such circumstances. The study by Bux and Coyne (2009) explored these conditions more by including qualitative analysis. This form of analysis enriched the data on terrorism responses by providing additional information that ordinary quantitative instruments alone cannot measure. Finally, these studies are constrained by the memories or ability to recall emotions and events of their participants. They know that this can affect the validity of their findings and results. They agreed, however, that their findings are crucial to managing emotions, especially for the side of the governments of these affected communities. Reference List Bux, S.M. and Coyne, S.M., 2009. The effects of terrorism: the aftermath of the London Terror Attacks. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39 (12), pp. 2936–2966. Conejero, S. and Etxebarria, I. 2007. The impact of the Madrid Bombing on personal emotions, emotional atmosphere and emotional climate. Journal of Social Issues, 63 (2), pp. 273-287. Read More