While some have emotionally coped with the traumatic events of September 11, 2001, others continue to struggle with it. A new study relating gender and ethnicity to post-9/11 responses explores just what factors, aside from personal loss, decide how a person is affected by tragedy.
UB's Dr. Mark Seery, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, recently collaborated with University of California Irvine on "Ethnicity and Gender in the Face of a Terrorist Attack." The study is groundbreaking in the field of trauma research because of its uncommonly large and diverse survey group, which was already in place before the attacks.
As Dr. Seery explains, "the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 - terrible as they were - gave us a unique opportunity to study gender and ethnic differences because we could avoid the typical limitations of trauma research."
The weaknesses of past trauma-response investigations are small in both the size and homogeneity of the study samples, according to Seery. In addition, trauma-related research is almost always confined to the aftermath of an event, as it is virtually impossible to predict when a tragedy will take place. Thus, the time prior is rarely examined.
"Because this survey panel already existed when the 9/11 attacks occurred, we were able to collect pre-trauma measures of mental and physical health, which is very rare," Seery said. "This lets us account for people who had health problems before the traumatic event occurred. We were able to assess people's immediate responses, starting on the very day of the attacks."
The researchers then followed the sample group of 1,559 people for two years following 9/11 to observe the long-term effects of the tragedy. This is yet another novelty, as it is often too difficult to keep track of trauma survivors over long time periods.
The study's participants were split into groups based on immediate reactions to the attacks: those who responded with sadness or sympathy; those in support of violent retaliation; those who desired non-violent retaliation, or to direct it elsewhere; and those in support of no retaliation. Participants answered questions about their responses to the attacks and later relayed the state of their health in two- and six-month intervals.
Gender and ethnicity greatly correlated with how a subject was affected by 9/11. Highlighting the results, it was much more likely for women to express sympathy and sadness after 9/11 than for men. Regarding ethnicity, African Americans were more likely than whites to respond emotionally. A group of "other ethnicities," largely comprised of Asian Americans, was more likely than whites to support taking no future action; women were similarly more likely to support this than men.
Concerning health, Hispanics experienced more symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS) than did whites over the two years following 9/11, just as women experienced PTS symptoms and other health ailments more often than men.
"Previous research certainly gave us reason to expect some differences, like women being more likely than men to express sadness and other emotions in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. However, there wasn't much direct evidence for other elements of the study, so this really represents a new contribution," Seery said. "One striking finding was that not a single African-American woman in our sample endorsed violent retaliation against the people responsible for the attacks."
The study found that initial responses to the trauma predicted future trends in subjects' health. Those that responded with sadness early on tended to experience more symptoms of PTS over time. Subjects in immediate support of violent retaliation endured more negative health effects than those supporting non-violent or re-directed action. The latter group also fared better than those wanting no action.
All in all, the study is one of the first to find that responses to trauma vary between groups of people.
"It is easy to imagine that everyone responds in the same way after a traumatic event, or that there is only one 'healthy' way to respond," Seery said. "One general message of this study is that things are not so simple."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
