RAPID: Predicting Trajectories of Post-Disaster Adjustment from Pre-Disaster Assessments of Risk and Resilience Factors

大多数美国人都会在一生中的某个时候经历一次创伤性事件。5%到10%的人会在一年或更长时间后出现持续性和致残性的心理和身体问题。鉴于这一事实，本项目侧重于一种创伤性事件的心理和身体(健康)后果，即自然灾害。它侧重于不同的先前存在的个性特征和社会经历(在灾难发生前进行测量)如何影响人们随着时间的推移应对自然灾害的方式。对创伤适应能力差的人(例如，那些出现无法解释的生理症状的人)一般都有经历强烈负面情绪的倾向。相比之下，适应能力好的人自尊很高，在亲密的关系中很舒服，生活中有其他人可以依靠他们在身体和情感上的支持。然而，大多数记录这些发现的研究使用了在重大创伤发生后收集的个性和社会信息。因此，很难知道上面列出的个人和人际优势是否导致了积极应对，或者积极应对是否允许人们发展或保持这些积极的个人和人际优势。在阿拉巴马大学的一大批本科生样本中，汉密尔顿博士碰巧测量了基本的人格变量、情绪倾向和社会变量，这些变量都与应对创伤高度相关。2011年春季，该地区遭遇龙卷风袭击。因此，汉密尔顿博士处于一个独特的位置，可以跟进这项最初的调查，看看龙卷风来袭前收集的个性和社会指标是否能预测随着时间的推移幸福感的变化。人们个人受到龙卷风影响程度的自然、随机变化(例如，某人的家园是否被摧毁，一个人是否知道某人被杀或受重伤)提供了一个独特的机会，结合测量的社会和人格变量，看看人们经历的与创伤事件有关的事件的严重性是否在调整中发挥作用。参与者的社会支持网络感知质量的差异也将使研究人员能够测试社会支持可以保护人们免受压力事件的负面后果这一观点。这项研究最重要的结果将是更好地理解创伤事件如何影响幸福感。这些信息将帮助科学家和教育工作者制定战略，促进创伤后积极的长期调整，并提高为应对大规模灾害而部署的社会服务的有效性。此外，该项目将汇集从社会心理学角度处理创伤和适应的学生和教师研究人员，以及从临床心理学角度处理这些问题的研究人员。这一合作将丰富参与规划研究以及收集和分析项目数据的本科生和研究生的教育。最终，这些经验将提高他们未来努力理解压力、应对和适应的社会和个性方面的质量。

Most Americans will experience a traumatic event at some time in their lives. Five to ten percent will have persistent and disabling psychological and physical problems a year or more later. In light of this fact, this project focuses on the psychological and physical (health) consequences of one kind of traumatic event, namely a natural disaster. It focuses on how different preexisting personality traits and social experiences (measured before a disaster) influence the way in which people cope with a natural disaster over time. People who adjust poorly to traumas (e.g., those who develop unexplained phsyical symptoms) have a general tendency to experience strong negative emotions. In contrast, people who adjust well have high self-esteem, are comfortable in their close relationships, and have others in their lives they can count on for physical and emotional support. However, most research documenting these findings used personality and social information gathered after a major trauma took place. Thus, it is hard to know whether the personal and interpersonal strengths listed above caused positive coping or whether positive coping allowed people to develop or maintain these positive personal and interpersonal strengths. In a large sample of undergraduate students at the University of Alabama, shortly before the area was struck by tornadoes in the spring of 2011, Dr. Hamilton happened to measure basic personality variables, emotional tendencies, and social variables that are all highly relevant to coping with trauma. Thus, Dr. Hamilton is in a unique position to follow-up on this initial survey to see if the personality and social measures collected prior to the time the tornadoes struck will predict changes in well-being over time. Natural, random variation in the extent to which people were personally affected by the tornado (e.g., whether someone's home was destroyed, whether a person knows someone who was killed or seriously injured) offers a unique opportunity, in combination with the measured social and personality variables, to see if the severity of events people experience in relation to the traumatic event plays a role in adjustment. Differences in the perceived quality of participants' social support networks will also allow the researchers to test the idea that social support can protect people from the negative consequences of stressful events. The most important outcome of the study will be a better understanding of how traumatic events influence well-being. This information will help scientists and educators to develop strategies to promote positive long-term adjustment following trauma, and to improve the effectiveness of social services deployed in response to large-scale disasters. In addition, the project will bring together student and faculty researchers who approach trauma and adjustment from a social psychological perspective with those who approach these problems from a clinical psychology perspective. This collaboration will enrich the education of both the undergraduate and graduate students involved in planning the study and in the collection and analysis of the project data. Ultimately these experiences will improve the quality of their future efforts to understand social and personality aspects of stress, coping, and adjustment.