Coping with the Threat of Terror

描述（由申请人提供）：恐怖主义的可能性是9-11后世界生活中发人深省的一面。然而，人们是如何应对恐怖威胁的，或者他们的心理健康和功能在多大程度上受到了损害，人们对此知之甚少。因为恐怖主义通过制造迫在眉睫的威胁来实现其目标，所以研究人们如何应对恐怖主义的可能性是很重要的。现有的应对措施未能评估应对的复杂性或在恐怖主义之后所采用的具体方法。以色列是研究人们如何应对恐怖的天然实验室。在这个应用程序中，我们有三个目标：(1)采用最先进的测试构建方法来生成一个心理测量学上健全的测量，该测量指标是以色列人如何应对恐怖主义威胁的具体维度；(2)构建衡量与未来恐怖威胁相关的功能影响的清单；(3)检验一个因果模型，该模型假设了一些与恐怖主义威胁相关的功能障碍的中介和调节因子，包括应对恐怖的特征方法。这项研究将产生应对恐怖和相关功能障碍的措施，这些措施可以在美国得到广泛应用。公共卫生和政府政策领域（例如，国土国防部、疾病预防控制中心、NIMH、SAMHSA）非常需要产生知识，以便在面对恐怖时为公民提供建议，特别是对未来大规模暴力事件的担忧，如生物恐怖主义、脏弹等。美国精神病学和心理学协会以及各种政府机构已经制作和出版了信息材料，建议人们如何应对这些焦虑；然而，这些材料并没有经过研究。我们的研究结果将为研究人们如何应对对未来恐怖的前所未有的担忧提供工具，这将大大提高公共卫生对恐怖的反应。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The possibility of terrorism is a sobering facet of life in the post-9-11 world. Yet, little is known about how people cope with, or the extent to which their mental health and functioning is impaired by, the threat of terror. Because terror accomplishes its goals by posing a looming threat it is important to examine how people cope with the possibility of terror. Existing coping measures fail to assess the intricacies of coping or the specific methods employed in the aftermath of terrorism. Israel is a natural laboratory to study how people cope with terror. In this application, we have three objectives: (1) to employ state-of-the-art test construction methods to generate a psychometrically sound measure that indexes the specific dimensions of how Israelis cope with the threat of terrorism; (2) to construct a checklist that measures the functional impact related to the threat of future terror; and (3) to test a causal model that posits a number of mediators and moderators of functional impairment related to the threat of terrorism, including characteristic methods of coping with terror. The research will produce measures of coping with terror and related functional impairment that can be modified for broad use in the US. There is a substantial need in the public health and government policy arenas (e.g., Department of Homeland Defense, CDC, NIMH, SAMHSA) to generate knowledge that can be used to advise citizens in the face of terror, especially concerns about future mass violence episodes, such as bioterrorism, dirty bombs, and so on. Informational materials have been created and published by the American Psychiatric and Psychological Associations and various government agencies to advise people about how they should cope with these anxieties; however, these materials have not been based on research. Our results will provide tools to study the way people cope with unprecedented worries about future terror, which will greatly enhance the public health response to terror.