The Impact of 9/11 on American Psychology

The events of September 11, 2001 have deeply impacted our country, precipitating highly significant policy changes, wars, and increases in bias against people perceived to be Muslim; they also elicited PTSD symptoms in countless people both in the United States and elsewhere. As an academic discipline embedded in American culture, American psychology has also been affected. One window into these effects is to analyze what has been cited since 9/11 in Psychological Abstracts (PSYCINFO), an electronic database that provides systematic coverage of the psychological literature including but not limited to those sub-disciplines considered part of the academic field of psychology; also included are abstracts from areas such as communication studies, nursing and residential rehabilitation, police and legal personnel.

The current paper reports on a content analysis of the titles of English-language articles referenced in PSYCINFO which included the key words “September 11” and “9/11,” and were published between 2002 and 2006; dissertation abstracts, book reviews, calls for papers, editorial introductions to special journals were excluded, yielding a data base of 455 article titles. The assumption in focusing on article titles only—as opposed to articles that referenced 9/11 in both their titles and texts—was that the events of September 11^th were fore-grounded in the former and not merely background for discussion. Similarly, the assumption in focusing on the first five years was that these years give most insight into

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how the immediacy of the events following 9/11 impacted psychology as a discipline.

The author and a senior psychology major (Lara Fidalgo) at Drew University independently coded the titles. If the article title did not have enough information, abstracts were reviewed; this was the case for 171 articles (or 37.6% of the total data base). An initial inter-rater agreement rate of 80% was obtained; disagreements were subsequently discussed until 100% agreement was reached. The table below shows the six coding categories we developed and summarizes the overall findings.

Distribution of all articles by topic and year

Topic   2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Total

As can be seen, the distribution of articles with

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“September 11” or “9/11” in their titles was relatively even across the years 2002-2005 with a peak number in 2003 and a significant decrease in 2006 (χ²=17.6, df=4, p<.01). Also evident is that the largest number of article titles fell into the generic category of “social psychology.” This included articles that focused on attitudes, media, group interactions, communication, identity, and political issues. Among these topics, the most prevalent, representing a little more than half of the social psychology titles, reported on how American attitudes were being shaped—or in the extreme manipulated—by the media, political rhetoric, and public discourse surrounding the events of 9/11. A sample title included in this category is “Charisma under crisis: presidential leadership, rhetoric, and media responses before and after the September 11^th terrorist attacks,” published in Leadership Quarterly, 2004. Interestingly, the largest proportion of social psychological articles were published in 2004-2005, the years leading up to and just following (post-mortem) the 2004 presidential election. In addition, the greatest percentage of articles published in 2004 and 2005 fell into this category.

The table also indicates that the second most prevalent group of article titles related to professional development; these titles implied therapists’ self-reflection on how some psychotherapeutic modalities were no longer viable after 9/11; existing psychological theory did not adequately deal with the type of crises precipitated by the attacks, and new models needed to be developed (e.g., “Moving forward from September 11: A stress/crisis/trauma model,” published in Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention, 2002). Also included in this category were articles in which psychologists wrote about how other professions had been similarly impacted by 9/11, e.g. “Review of preventing surprise attacks: Intelligence reform in the wake of 9/11,” published in the Journal of Psychiatry and Law in 2006. The early peak of

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this subset of articles (2002-2003) reflects the immediacy of 9/11 and the ability of psychologists to both identify the need for new approaches and to then develop them. Related to this were articles which seemed to meld the areas of social and clinical psychology, a subgroup of articles that also peaked in 2002-2003. These focused on coping through the use of support groups, psycho-education, community mental health programs, or focused on 9/11’s effects on specific social-cultural-geographic groups, thereby melding sociological and psychological analysis. Also included in this category were articles researching how specific personality characteristics such as optimism or resilience were related to more positive mental health outcomes.

Collectively, these titles suggest that the trauma inflicted by 9/11 was all-encompassing and that psychologists recognized the need to mobilize community resources to help people weather the immediate crises. Also implied is that some groups and individuals seemed to be better able to do this and that perhaps their approaches and abilities could be modeled for others. Representative titles included in this category are: “Asian American families’ collectivistic coping strategies in response to 9/11” (Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 2006) and “Empathy and interpersonal style: A meditational model of secondary traumatic stress symptomology following 9/11” (Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, 2005).

In addition, the table shows that the “pure” clinical articles were about equally distributed across the years until 2006, when it represented almost 27% of the articles published that year. These titles suggested that the articles focused on the impact of 9/11 on specific diagnostic groups or specific interventions developed to prevent clinical behaviors or the trauma experienced by specific occupational groups such as first responders. A sample title from 2006 is: “Persistent post-traumatic stress disorder following Septem-

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ber 11 in patients with bipolar disorder,” published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry). One final noteworthy finding from the table is the paucity of articles focusing on how 9/11 affected children.

So what does this analysis tell us about how American psychology as a discipline was affected by the events of September 11, 2001?

First, it suggests that the focus of research and publication shifted during the first five years after 9/11, as different effects emerged. Early on, clinicians seemed to be struggling with how to deal with the new post-9/11 American society that had been created; numerous articles identified the shortcomings of existent theory and models and reflected on the need to develop new psychotherapeutic approaches. Emphasis seemed to shift from intra-personal dynamics to the importance of social support systems, community mental health, and psycho-education. Authors also explored how various social/ethnic/national/geographic groups were differentially dealing with the crises precipitated by 9/11.

At the same time, the research focusing on the chronic needs of those with specific diagnoses or of “first responder” groups remained fairly constant throughout 2002-2005, increasing somewhat in 2006. The one “high need” group which is notably missing from the literature, however, is children, a finding that is difficult to interpret. In contrast, social psychological concerns became more prevalent several years later as empirical evidence was being gathered to document what many people were informally observing, especially during the years leading up to the 2004 presidential election: that social-political attitudes were being manipulated and biased media coverage was “whipping up” prejudice and stereotyping.

Second, the overall findings document how psychology, as represented by what gets published, is impacted by

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the very same forces that shape the society in which it is embedded. Along these lines, it is interesting to note the decline in the total number of articles with “September 11” or “9/11” in their titles to 60 by 2003. A PSYCINFO search reveals that these numbers decline even further to 50 in 2007 and 29 in 2008. The author suspects that during more recent years the impact of 9/11 on psychological research has not actually waned; rather it has become part of the background within which psychology—and American society—continues to operate. For psychology this would mean that September 11 is now referenced in the texts of articles rather than fore-grounded in their titles. Only additional research will confirm this hypothesis.

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