Citation

Rotton J, Dubitsky SS, Milov A, White SM, Clark MC. J. Environ. Psychol. 1997; 17(2): 85-98.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, Academic Press)

DOI

10.1006/jevp.1997.0044

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

It was hypothesized that students who endured harm following a hurricane would show more distress and illness than students who were threatened by the storm's impact, and threatened students would be distressed more than students at two remote locations. These hypotheses were tested by obtaining measures of distress, performance, and hormones (cortisol and testosterone) from 160 students on four college campuses. The hypotheses received partial support. As hypothesized, threatened students had higher levels of illnesses than students at remote sites, but they did not report more psychological distress. Further, the highest levels of cortisol levels and lowest levels of cognitive complexity were recorded among students who had been harmed as well as threatened. These results were interpreted in terms of social stage models of behavioral inhibition.