Workplace flexibility has been a topic of considerable interest to researchers, practitioners, and public policy advocates as a tool to help individuals manage work and family roles. In this study, meta-analysis is used to clarify what is known about the relationship between flexible work arrangements and work-family conflict by deconstructing the flexibility construct. We found that the direction of work-family conflict (work interference with family vs. family interference with work) and the specific form of flexibility (flextime vs. flexplace; use vs. availability) make a difference in the effects found. Overall, the significant effects were small in magnitude.

The authors conducted a large-scale study of terrorism in Israel via telephone surveys in September 2003 with 905 adult Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel (PCIs). Structural equation path modeling indicated that exposure to terrorism was significantly related to greater loss and gain of psychosocial resources and to greater posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms. Psychosocial resource loss and gain associated with terrorism were, in turn, significantly related to both greater PTSD and depressive symptoms. PCIs had significantly higher levels of PTSD and depressive symptoms than Jews. Further, PTSD symptoms in particular were related to greater authoritarian beliefs and ethnocentrism, suggesting how PTSD may lead to a self-protective style of defensive coping.

Recent studies related to global terrorism have suggested the potential of posttraumatic growth (PTG) following experiences of terror exposure. However, investigations of whether psychological distress is reduced or increased by PTG in other trauma contexts have been inconsistent. Results from our studies conducted in New York following the attacks of 11 September 2001 and in Israel during recent tumultuous periods of violence and terrorism, the Al Aqsa Intifada, have found posttraumatic growth to be related to greater psychological distress, more right-wing political attitudes, and support for retaliatory violence. Only when individuals were deeply involved in translating growth cognitions to growth actions in our research on the forced disengagement of settlers from Gaza did we find positive benefit in posttraumatic growth. Findings are considered within the framework of a new formulation of actionfocused growth.De récentes recherches en rapport avec le terrorisme international ont souligné le potentiel du développement post-traumatique (PTG) découlant de la confrontation à la terreur. Toutefois, les travaux cherchant à savoir si la détresse psychologique était atténuée ou accentuée par le PTG dans d'autres contextes traumatiques se sont révélés contradictoires. Nos investigations à New York après l'attentat du 11 septembre 2001 et en Israël durant des périodes récentes de violence et de terrorisme, la seconde Intifada, ont montré que le développement post-traumatique était plutôt lié à une grande détresse psychologique, à des opinions politiques de droite et à une attente de représailles. On a observé lors du déménagement obligatoire des colons de Gaza que ce n'est que lorsque les individus étaient profondément impliqués dans la transformation des cognitions de développement en actions de développement que le développement post-traumatique avait des retombées positives. Ces résultats sont appréhendés dans le cadre d'une nouvelle approche du développement centré sur l'action.

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