Growing up with the threat of nuclear war: Some indirect effects on personality development.

Escalona, Sibylle K.

doi:10.1111/j.1939-0025.1982.tb01449.x

Cited by 85 publications

(41 citation statements)

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“…The more destructive nuclear war was perceived to be, the greater the tendency for lower self-evaluation of one's emotional stability. Although correlational relationships do not validate the causal implications made by Escalona (1982). Schwebel (1982), Mack (1982, 1983), and Dodds (1983), these are necessary conditions for the validation of the relationships.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…The reality of the nuclear threat has been predicted to create powerlessness (Escalona, 1982), helplessness (Dodds, 1983;Schwebel, 1982), and cynicism (Escalona). Thus, locus of control is implicated as a relevant personality, dependent variable.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…A sizable portion of children, adolescents, and adults have become concerned and worried to some degree about the ever present nuclear threat (e.g., Beardslee & Mack, 1982;Escalona, 1965Escalona, , 1982Kramer, Kalick, & Millburn, 1983;Mayton, in press;Schwebel, 1963Schwebel, , 1965Schwebel, , 1982. Elder (1965) suggested that this "possibility of thermonuclear war and all the attendent cold war tensions should produce a high incidence and large variety of emotional responses'' (p. 120).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Escalona (1982) predicted that the nuclear threat would have indirect effects on the development of the child's potential ego strengths and weaknesses. Mack (1982, 1983) referred to the potential detrimental effects on an adolescent's healthy ego ideal.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Personality Correlates of Nuclear War Threat Perception

Mayton

1986

The Journal of Social Psychology

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confidence: 93%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Personality Correlates of Nuclear War Threat Perception

Mayton

1986

The Journal of Social Psychology

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“…threat on the emotional and psychological processes of the individual have been based largely upon anecdotal evidence, supposition, and interviews (Escalona, 1982;Mack, 1982). In much of this research, subjects have been asked to indicate explicitly what impact they feel the threat of nuclear war or accidents at nuclear power plants has had on their lives (Schwebel, 1982;Schwebel & Schwebel, 1981).…”

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Assessment of Nuclear Anxiety Among American Students: Stability Over Time, Secular Trends, and Emotional Correlates

Newcomb

1989

The Journal of Social Psychology

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Studies of reactions and attitudes toward nuclear war have progressed from the use of anecdotal evidence to multi-item psychological measures. Additional psychometric data and substantive results of the Nuclear Attitudes Questionnaire (NAQ; Newcomb, 1986) are reported here. Data from three independent samples of students from the United States collected in 1984, 1986, and 1987 were compared and contrasted. The 1986 data were obtained immediately following the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident. Test-retest reliability of the NAQ items and subscales was quite high and comparable among samples and established the across-time stability of the measure. There were several secular trends across years on items and subscales, indicating some increased concern about nuclear power (particularly in 1986), but also a general increase in nuclear concerns, fears, and anxiety. Anticipated sex differences were found on many of the NAQ items and subscales. Correlations between the NAQ subscales and the nine SCL-90-R scales (Derogatis, 1977) were consistent for the 1986 and 1987 samples. In latent variable analyses, a general factor of Emotional Distress was significantly correlated with a general factor of Nuclear Anxiety, as well as specifically with nuclear concern and fear for the future.

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Changing our ways of thinking. Health professionals and nuclear weapons

Neal¹

1984

J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof.

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We must never re& our efforts to arouse in the people of the worki, and especially in their governments, an awareness of the unprecedented dkaster which they are absolutely certain to bring on themselves unless there k a fundamental change in their attitudes toward one another as well as in their concept of the future. The unleashedpower of the atom has changed everything except our way of thinking.Albert Einstein (1, p. 3 j ccording to an increasing number of health A professionals, the drift toward nuclear catastrophe of which Einstein spoke is becoming more and more imminent, posing the greatest public health problem in human history. A primary reason for this concern is a new and more dangerous phase of the nuclear arms race, which substantially increases the risk of nuclear war. A new generation of technology has created nuclear weapons accurate enough for first strike attack on military targets. This increased accuracy has allowed a shift in strategy from preventing war by mutually assured destruction, to waging nuclear war by destroying the other side's forces in a first strike. This nuclear war fighting strategy assumes that nuclear war can be won, that a strike against military targets can be limited without expanding to a full scale nuclear exchange and that a nuclear war can be survived. Moreover, first strike weapons such as the Pershing I1 missiles planned for Europe will be able to reach Moscow within ten minutes, perhaps forcing computerized launch on warning by the 8 1984 by The Regents of the IJniversity of California Soviet Union and increasing the risk of accidental nuclear war ( 2 ) .As Mobius editor Lucy Ann Geiselman notes in her Editorial, Einstein also spoke of the power of individual action, the comfort of the "alive and undismayed" (3). With public statements about winning nuclear war in the late 1970's, many health professionals have become alarmed about these assumptions of survivability and the increasing risk of nuclear war. These health workers have joined with other concerned citizens in the United States, Europe and around the world to demand, and to help create, the changes in thinking by which this threat can be lessened and nuclear weapons controlled. The message o f this movement is that "survival is everybody's business" and that the issue of nuclear weapons is the most crucial issue of our time, transcending partisan politics and other differences between people. In health care, health professionals have stated concern in medicine, public health, nursing, psychiatry, psychology, and other mental health disciplines, social work, health education and the allied health professions.Einstein's call for new ways of thinking is reflected throughout movement activities, and is also congruent with social science theory concerning how such movements create change (4,5,6). Defining a set of ideas on which to base action has been seen as an important part of the mechanisms of social movements. Social movements document the need for change, the failings of the current state of affairs; d...

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Growing up with the threat of nuclear war: Some indirect effects on personality development.

Cited by 85 publications

References 1 publication

Personality Correlates of Nuclear War Threat Perception

Personality Correlates of Nuclear War Threat Perception

Assessment of Nuclear Anxiety Among American Students: Stability Over Time, Secular Trends, and Emotional Correlates

Changing our ways of thinking. Health professionals and nuclear weapons

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