Abstract
Social support and an emerging sense of community are common in flooding, but postflood group dynamics have not been fully addressed. In the context of a flooded community, we explore how social identification with one’s community emerges and affects well-being, collective efficacy, and social support. Results from a quantitative survey show that social identification was positively associated with common fate, collective efficacy, and well-being through residents’ expectations of support and shared goals. Importantly, social identification and disaster exposure interacted: For flooded residents, observing support was associated with providing support regardless of levels of social identification. For unaffected residents there was no association between observed and provided support, regardless of levels of social identification. However, for indirectly affected residents observing support was associated to providing support but only when they highly identified with the community. We argue that structural factors should also be considered when exploring the effects of group membership.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1075-1095 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | British Journal of Social Psychology |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Jul 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Evangelos would like to thank Emma Brice and Prof. Stephen Gibson for their invaluable support during the data collection process. The research described in this paper was funded by a Public Health England PhD studentship. Dr Rubin and Prof Amlôt are funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit (NIHR HPRU) in Emergency Preparedness and Response at King’s College London in partnership with Public Health England (PHE).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The British Psychological Society
Keywords
- collective resilience
- community resilience
- disasters
- flooding
- social identity
- social support