Searching for and finding meaning in collective trauma
Results from a national longitudinal study of the 9/11 terrorist attacks
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6203657 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John A Updegraff (0000-0003-1128-3715, Kent State University), Roxane Cohen Silver (0000-0002-4013-6792, University of California, Irvine), E Alison Holman (0000-0001-5076-8403, University of California, Irvine) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 95 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 709-722 |
| Publication date | 2008-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315 |
| Publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1037/0022-3514.95.3.709 |
| PMID | 18729704 |
| PMCID | PMC2617710 |
| OpenAlex | W2132284923 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 96 |
| References cited | 39 |
The ability to make sense of events in one's life has held a central role in theories of adaptation to adversity. However, there are few rigorous studies on the role of meaning in adjustment, and those that have been conducted have focused predominantly on direct personal trauma. The authors examined the predictors and long-term consequences of Americans' searching for and finding meaning in a widespread cultural upheaval--the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001--among a national probability sample of U.S. adults (N=931). Searching for meaning at 2 months post-9/11 was predicted by demographics and high acute stress response. In contrast, finding meaning was predicted primarily by demographics and specific early coping strategies. Whereas searching for meaning predicted greater posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms across the following 2 years, finding meaning predicted lower PTS symptoms, even after controlling for pre-9/11 mental health, exposure to 9/11, and acute stress response. Mediation analyses suggest that finding meaning supported adjustment by reducing fears of future terrorism. Results highlight the role of meaning in adjustment following collective traumas that shatter people's fundamental assumptions about security and invulnerability
Coping (psychology) · Developmental psychology · Longitudinal study · Meaning (existential) · Meaning-making · Mediation · Medical emergency · Mental health · Poison control · Psychotherapist · Social science · Sociology · Terrorism · Clinical Psychology · Medicine · Migration, Health and Trauma · Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research · Psychology · Resilience and Mental Health · Social Psychology
Perceptions of safety among LGBTQ people following the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting
External and internalized heterosexism, meaning in life, and psychological distress
Need for a population health approach to understand and address psychosocial consequences of Covid-19
Multiple losses of social resources following collective trauma
Collective trauma and community support
Automatic emotion regulation after social exclusion
Life-threatening event reduces subjective well-being through activating avoidance motivation
Identifying Social Service Needs of Muslims Living in a Post 9/11 Era
Continuous traumatic stress
When do victim group members feel a moral obligation to help suffering others
Observers' benefit finding for victims
Does growth require suffering? A systematic review and meta-analysis on genuine posttraumatic and postecstatic growth
Making sense of the meaning literature
The past makes the present meaningful
Supervisor Security Provision
Media Ruins
The Integration of Stressful Life Experiences Scale (Isles)
Labeling and Stigma
Nostalgia as a Resource for Psychological Health and Well‐Being
The Science of Meaning in Life
Blaming God for Our Pain
Collective Victimization
Socioeconomic Status and Health
“Shift-and-Persist” Strategies
The power of the past
Erosion of Meaning in Life
Adolescent Adjustment, Caregiver-Adolescent Relationships, and Outlook Towards the Future in the Long-Term Aftermath of the Bosnian War
A Cross-Sectional Time Course of Covid-19 Related Worry, Perceived Stress, and General Anxiety in the Context of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder-like Symptomatology
Crisis Experience and Purpose in Life in Men and Women
Posttraumatic Growth at Work
Aircraft-Assisted Pilot Suicides in the General Aviation Increased for One-Year Period after 11 September 2001 Attack in the United States
Meaning and resilience in war-affected populations during crisis
Posttraumatic Growth in Psychosis
The Role of Social Support for Israeli Adolescents Continually Exposed to Terrorism
Meaning in life and antenatal depression mediated by self-efficacy and perceived helplessness
Factors Predicting Post-Traumatic Positive and Negative Psychological Changes Experienced by Nurses during a Pandemic Covid-19
In the Aftermath of a Black Swan Event
Emerging priorities and concerns in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic
College students' cyberloafing and the sense of meaning of life
Lived experiences and meanings of the Covid-19 pandemic
Fifty years of scholarly research on terrorism
Social Work and the Next Frontier of Racial Justice
Exploring the Heterogeneity and Trajectories of Positive Functioning Variables, Emotional Distress, and Post-traumatic Growth During Strict Confinement Due to Covid-19
A Brief Gratitude Writing Intervention Decreased Stress and Negative Affect During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Structural Adjustment and Community Resilience
Gender equality truth of transgenders community
Adjustment to the Covid-19 pandemic
Forging unity in crisis
Too many lemons to make lemonade? Disentangling mental health during the third wave of Covid-19 infections in Spain
Exploring cultural trauma
The Role of Perceived Authenticity in Psychological Recovery from Collective Trauma
Generativity, perceptions of positive changes, and mental health in middle-aged and older adults
Meaning in Life and Coping With Everyday Stressors
How Nostalgia Affects Middle School Students' Willingness to Ask for Help
Presence of meaning, search for meaning, religiousness, satisfaction with life and depressive symptoms among a diverse Israeli sample
The meaning as a buffer hypothesis
Religious meaning-making at the community level
Meaning-Making, Psychological Distress, and the Experience of Meaning in Life Following a Natural Disaster
Meaning-making and rumour-mongering in the shadow of terrorism
The Problem of the Meaning of Life
Echoes of resilience
It's Complicated
Groups’ search for meaning
Ideological Meaning Making After the Loss of a Child
Measuring Meaning
Ontological (In)visibility and Cyber Conflict
Resilience Processes during Cosmology Episodes
Religion and Health
Gender and Mental Health
Die ambivalente Rolle der Spiritualität für die Erklärung von Verschwörungsglauben und Demonstrationsbereitschaft im Kontext der Covid-19-Pandemie
From what might have been to what must have been
In What Ways Do Bereaved Parents After Terror Go on With Their Lives, and What Seems to Inhibit or Promote Adaptation During Their Grieving Process? A Qualitative Study
Where Are They Now
A Pilot Study of Meaning-Based Group Counseling for Bereavement
Reactive Attitudes and AI-Agents – Making Sense of Responsibility and Control Gaps
The Influence of Meaning-making after Spousal Loss on Trajectories of Psychological Distress
Understanding the Sociocultural Context of Coping for African American Family Members of Homicide Victims
Did the Covid-19 Pandemic Change the Global Trend in Religiosity? An Interrupted Time Series Analysis of Survey Data from 165 Countries (2005–2024)
Shift-and-Persist Strategies
Protective Factors for Adults From Low-Childhood Socioeconomic Circumstances
Only some attempts at meaning making are successful
Trajectories of relationship satisfaction
Threats to human rights
Posttraumatic Stress and Meaning Making in Mexico City
Mixed feelings. Changing group-based emotions explain the decline in collective action for Ukrainian refugees
Sense-making and secondary victimization among unsolved homicide co-victims
When groups do not cure
Meaning-Making Predicts Forgiveness as an Indicator of Posttraumatic Growth with a Stronger Effect for Natural Disasters
Historical group victimization entails moral obligations for descendants
Coping With Loss
Means to Meaning in Cancer-Related Bereavement
A Cross-Sectional Study on Risk Factors of Depression Severity Among Survivors of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake
Moderating Effect of Meanings-Made on the Relationship Between Exposure to Potentially Traumatic Life Events and Suicidal Ideation
Who Is Concerned about Terrorist Attacks? A Religious Profile
Who Explains Hurricane Katrina and the Chilean Earthquake as an Act of God? The Experience of Extreme Hardship Predicts Religious Meaning-Making
Meaning Making in Survivorship
Meaning reconstruction & the experience of loss.
Life Schemes
Meaning in the Context of Stress and Coping
A National Survey of Stress Reactions after the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks
Psychological Resilience After Disaster
Linguistic Markers of Psychological Change Surrounding September 11, 2001
Prospective Patterns of Resilience and Maladjustment During Widowhood.
Psychological Sequelae of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks in New York City
Psychological Reactions to Terrorist Attacks
Trends of Probable Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in New York City after the September 11 Terrorist Attacks
Using Generalized Estimating Equations for Longitudinal Data Analysis
Nationwide Longitudinal Study of Psychological Responses to September 11
Longitudinal data analysis using generalized linear models
You want to measure coping but your protocol’ too long
Hierarchical linear models
The psychology of interpersonal relations.
Political Tolerance and Coming to Psychological Closure Following the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks
Finding Meaning in a Child's Violent Death
Searching for Meaning in Loss
What triggers causal attributions? The impact of valence and subjective probability
The Impact of the Madrid Bombing on Personal Emotions, Emotional Atmosphere and Emotional Climate
Searching for Meaning in Misfortune
Bereavement as a Psychosocial Transition
A Social Stage Model of Collective Coping
Long-term effects of losing a spouse or child in a motor vehicle crash
Reconsidering the attribution^adjustment relation following a major negative event
Counterfactuals, Causal Attributions, and the Hindsight Bias
The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research
Religion's role in adjustment to a negative life event
Establishing a causal chain
"Attributions of blame and coping in the "real world
The Pleasures of Uncertainty
The time course of grief reactions to spousal loss
When people ask "why" questions, and the heuristics of attributional search
Characterological versus behavioral self-blame
Sense-Making, Grief, and the Experience of Violent Loss
Blaming others for threatening events
"Spontaneous" causal thinking
| Unique citing works | 96 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 6 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2026 (17) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 82 |