Psychological distress and prejudice following terror attacks in France.
Terrorist attacks have the capacity to threaten our beliefs about the world, cause distress across populations and promote discrimination towards particular groups. We examined the impact of two different types of attacks in the same city and same year on psychological distress and probable posttraumatic stress symptoms, and the moderating effects of religion or media use on distress/posttraumatic symptoms and inter-group relations. Two panel surveys four weeks after the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack (N = 1981) and the November 2015 Bataclan concert hall/restaurant attacks (N = 1878), measured intrinsic religiosity, social and traditional media use, psychological distress (K6), probable posttraumatic stress symptoms (proposed ICD-11), symbolic racism and willingness to interact with Muslims by non-Muslims. Prevalence of serious mental illness (K6 score > 18) was higher after November 2015 attacks (7.0% after the first attack, 10.2% the second, χ2 (1) = 5.67, p < 0.02), as were probable posttraumatic stress symptoms (11.9% vs. 14.1%; χ2 (1) = 4.15, p < 0.04). In structural equation analyses, sex, age, geographic proximity, media use and religiosity were associated with distress, as was the interaction between event and religiosity. Distress was then associated with racism symbolism and willingness to interact with Muslims. Implications are considered for managing psychological trauma across populations, and protecting inter-group harmony.
Department of Psychology, Warwick University, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK. Electronic address: Robin.goodwin@warwick.ac.uk.
Robin
R
Goodwin
Department of Psychology, Uhler Hall, 1020 Oakland Avenue, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana, PA 15705-1068, USA; Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, USA. Electronic address: kaniasty@iup.edu.
Krzysztof
K
Kaniasty
School of Journalism, Fudan University, Guo Ding Road #400, Shanghai, 200433, PR China. Electronic address: shaojingsun@gmail.com.
Shaojing
S
Sun
School of Social Work, Ariel University, Ariel, 40700, Israel. Electronic address: menbe@ariel.ac.il.
Menachem
M
Ben-Ezra
D005260:Female; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011287:Prejudice / Q000523:psychology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D023481:Terrorism / Q000523:psychology*