ANN ARBOR—Mothers, especially single mothers, are most vulnerable to the psychological impact of terrorist threats. That is one of the findings reported by a University of Michigan psychologist at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Tampa, Florida. A year after the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks, single mothers were more than three times as likely as single and married fathers to report that their sense of personal safety and security was shaken “a good amount” or “a great deal.” They were twice as likely as married mothers to report an increased level of insecurity, even after controlling for their initial levels of depression and stress along with other factors, including race, income and education, that might heighten vulnerability.

And compared to adults who weren’t living with children under the age of 18, both mothers and fathers were significantly more likely to report elevated levels of personal insecurity, according to David L. Featherman, professor of psychology and sociology who directs the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world’s largest academic survey and research organization. “There’s something about just living with children that elevates adult vulnerability to terrorist threats, even when the children themselves are not showing signs of distress,” Featherman said. But the more distress children—one’s own or others—are seen to have, the more likely it is that parents report feeling shaken and insecure, noted Featherman. The data showing that parents have a heightened vulnerability to the psychological impact of terrorism are drawn from the ISR How Americans Respond Study of a national probability sample of 484 parents and non-parentswho were first interviewed right after the Sept. 11 attacks then interviewed one year later to assess long-term psychological response. For purposes of the current analysis, the researchers assumed that respondents living with children under the age of 18 were likely to be the children’s parents. The greater vulnerability of those living with children under the age of 18, and of women as compared to men, emerged during the first wave of the survey, when 59 percent of those with young children at home reported feeling a heightened sense of shaken safety and security compared to 46 percent of other adults surveyed. The differential remained a year later, with 46 percent of adults living with young children, compared to 35 percent of adults without young children at home, now reporting the same high level of insecurity. Right after the Sept. 11 attacks and a year later, women were more shaken than men, and mothers were more shaken than women who weren’t living with young children, even when the researchers controlled for the amount of distress adults reported seeing in the children. “To the extent that children react to their parents’ stress and fear, the developmental consequences of the heightened vulnerability of parents’—and especially single mothers’—may have a significant impact on the way children react to the continuing threat of terrorism,” Featherman said. The ISR How Americans Respond Study was funded in part by the Russell Sage Foundation. ISR research analyst Jinyun Liu collaborated with Featherman on the analyses reported above. Established in 1948, the Institute for Social Research (ISR) is among the world’s oldest survey research organizations, and a world leader in the development and application of social science methodology. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Survey of Consumer Attitudes, the National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, the Columbia County Longitudinal Study and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China, and South Africa. Visit the ISR Web site at www.isr.umich.edu for more information. ISR is also home to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the world’s largest computerized social science data archive.

Source: University of Michigan Institute for Social Research 2003

Related links:

• University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
• ISR How Americans Respond Study
• University of Michigan Department of Psychology
• Society for Research in Child Development