Tragic events are those events that causes great abruption and powerful impact, which ends up having a universal response from all the people (Arkkelin & Veitch, 1995). These types of events could be hurricanes such as hurricane Katrina, volcano eruptions, floods, or even disasters that are totally unexpected such as the airplane crash of September 11, 2001. The analysis after this traumatic event underlines the understanding of how individuals perceive, respond, or change their behavior when facing global threats. The plane crash of 9/11 caused a fear of uncertainty and left individuals wounded in realization that, indeed everyone is exposed to vulnerability and that even within our comfort zone, it takes few seconds for our whole lives to turn upside down. The article chosen for this analysis is of Bornstein & Hendricks (2007), which talks about the stress responses that were faced by adolescent living in the Washington area. The article will include adolescent perception, personal characteristics, and maternal characteristics.
The Theoretical Basis of the Article This article sheds light on unique perspective as few studies have examined the after effects of war or natural disaster on adolescence from an ecological point of view. This article concentrates on maternal characteristics, personal characteristics, as well as the perception of the adolescent towards the primary giver (Bornstein & Hendricks, 2007). From a young age, a child will use same or similar communication style of their personal caregiver thus; stress response and reaction of caregivers have significant impact on how the adolescent reacts to a stressful situation. Either it makes the child stronger and learn to deal and overcome stress, or the adolescent lacks in the ability in adaptive to changes. Adolescent personal traits also play a major role on perceiving a stressful event as due to hormonal changes, the temperament, coping style, and level of internalization is different of that of an adolescent.
Sample and Method The group participating in the research were of European inheritance, living in Washington metropolitan area which meant that the research were restricted towards the geographical area and mono-racial. 81.5 percent of them were college graduates, and the rest were parents. One should keep in mind the application of this research compared to the study of white, adolescent families in the greater areas of Washington Bornstein & Hendricks (2007). The research involved the use of Impact of Events Scale—Revised (IES-R) to measure symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the sample adolescents. To ascertain maternal personal characteristics the study employed the Jackson Personality Inventory—Revised (JPI-R) was used which is used to determine scores on big five trait clusters with explicit interest on neuroticism. Conflict Behavior Questionnaire was used to establish adolescent perception of parental behavior, and adolescent personal characteristics were measured using the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire—Revised. Moreover, the Coping Scales for Children and Youth, and the Youth Self Report were used to elucidate self-perception and self-assessment of the adolescents.
Results and Discussion The outcome of the research suggests that maternal disciplinary styles are closely correlated to with how one would react when put into a stressful situation. When September 11 disaster struck, adolescent who had doubts about terrorist, then they were heightened, adolescents who were living in their shelled life, suddenly felt vulnerable and acted with their maternal and adolescent instincts. The result also proved that individual characteristics don’t have larger impact on development of PTSD when the maternal and adolescent perceptions were present. Based on detailed research, it shows that based on psychologically controlling parenting styles, that emphases neglect disciplinary styles hinder the development and independence of adolescents. This leads to lack of ability or capacity for them to high level of stress and situations such as September 11.
Conclusion
Although the validity of the study is questionable, due to the fact that all the test questions were self answered, it is important to note that the relationship between environment and change in technology has made a great impact on how adolescents deal with stress. An ability to shatter lives through nuclear bombs, plane crash, and guns have made it easy for individuals to not trust the environment as it is so easy to get hold of a weapon and destroy someone’s lives. Through this, many environmental changes come such as global warming, change in economy, fear of the environment, and inability to correspond correctly when stress rises. Furthermore, it is noted that parental have a huge influence of how an adolescent reacts as they inhibit the same type of mechanism that is used during a stressful event.
References
Arkkelin, D., Veitch, R. (1995). Environmental psychology: An international perspective, 1e.New York, NY: Prentice Hall, Inc.
Bornstein, M.C., Hendricks, C. (2007). Ecological analysis of early adolescents’ stress responses to 9/11 in the Washington, DC, area. Applied Developmental Science, 11(2), 71-88. Retrieved June 10, 2010, from Education Research Complete database.
Hipp, J.A., Misra, S., Runnerstrom, M.G., Stokols, D. (2009). Psychology in an age of ecological crisis. American Psychologist, 64(3), 181-193. Retrieved June 10, 2010, from Academic Search Complete database