Ntontis Evangelos, Monkhouse Jennifer, Stokes-Guizani Natalie, Malovic Aida, Saavedra Patricio
School of Psychology and Counselling, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.
Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK.
Br J Soc Psychol. 2025 Apr;64(2):e12856. doi: 10.1111/bjso.12856.
The impacts of extreme events can intersect with pre-disaster systemic inequalities and deficiencies, exacerbating distress. This paper contributes to the existing literature by exploring the psychosocial processes through which stressors become traumatic during an extreme event. It does so by focusing on how mothers of children and/or adolescents in the United Kingdom experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. First, qualitative interviews (N = 15) showed that participants experienced a cluster of stressors stemming from their workplaces, partners, children's behaviours and homeschooling, which caused a sense of overload and captivity, reducing their quality of life. However, individual, interpersonal and collective forms of coping were reported. Second, quantitative survey data (N = 621) showed that the relationship between stressors and perceived stress was mediated by feelings of overload due to excessive identity-related tasks and caregiving responsibilities. Moreover, community identification was associated with reduced overload and perceived stress. Overall, during extreme events, people can experience distress due to being overloaded by and trapped in particular identities and identity-related tasks, unable to perform other aspects of their social selves. We argue that social psychological analyses can be useful in tracing the complex impacts of extreme events across a range of systems and levels of analysis.
极端事件的影响可能与灾前的系统性不平等和缺陷相互交织，加剧人们的痛苦。本文通过探讨压力源在极端事件中如何变成创伤性因素的社会心理过程，为现有文献做出了贡献。具体做法是聚焦于英国儿童和/或青少年的母亲如何经历新冠疫情。首先，定性访谈（N = 15）表明，参与者经历了一系列源自工作场所、伴侣、孩子行为和家庭教育的压力源，这些压力源导致了一种超负荷和受束缚的感觉，降低了他们的生活质量。然而，他们也报告了个人、人际和集体形式的应对方式。其次，定量调查数据（N = 621）表明，压力源与感知到的压力之间的关系是由因过多与身份相关的任务和照顾责任而产生的超负荷感所介导的。此外，社区认同感与超负荷感和感知到的压力的减轻有关。总体而言，在极端事件期间，人们可能会因特定身份和与身份相关的任务而不堪重负并陷入困境，无法展现其社会自我的其他方面，从而体验到痛苦。我们认为，社会心理分析有助于追踪极端事件在一系列系统和分析层面上产生的复杂影响。
