Coping with the Threat of Terror

描述（由申请人提供）：恐怖主义的可能性是后9-11世界生活中令人清醒的一面。然而，人们对如何科普恐怖威胁或他们的心理健康和功能受到恐怖威胁的损害程度知之甚少。由于恐怖通过构成迫在眉睫的威胁来实现其目标，因此研究人们如何科普恐怖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发生后采用的具体方法。以色列是研究人们如何科普恐怖的天然实验室。在这一应用中，我们有三个目标：（1）采用最先进的测试构建方法，以产生一个心理测量的声音衡量，索引以色列人如何科普恐怖主义威胁的具体方面;（2）构建一个检查表，衡量与未来恐怖威胁有关的功能影响;以及（3）检验一个因果模型，该模型假定了与恐怖主义威胁相关的功能障碍的一些中介者和调节者，包括应对恐怖主义的特征方法。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广泛使用。在公共卫生和政府政策领域有很大的需求（例如，美国精神病学和心理学协会以及各政府机构编写和出版了宣传材料，就人们应如何科普这些焦虑提出建议;然而，这些材料并不是以研究为基础的。我们的研究结果将为研究人们如何科普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.