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Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." [1] The understanding of social and environmental vulnerability, as a methodological approach, involves the analysis of the risks and assets of disadvantaged groups, such as the elderly. The approach of vulnerability in itself brings great expectations of social policy and gerontological planning. [2] [3] Types of vulnerability include social, cognitive, environmental, emotional or military.
In relation to hazards and disasters, vulnerability is a concept that links the relationship that people have with their environment to social forces and institutions and the cultural values that sustain and contest them. "The concept of vulnerability expresses the multi-dimensionality of disasters by focusing attention on the totality of relationships in a given social situation which constitute a condition that, in combination with environmental forces, produces a disaster". [4] It is also the extent to which changes could harm a system, or to which the community can be affected by the impact of a hazard or exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally.
Within the body of literature related to vulnerability, one major research stream includes the methodology behind said research, namely measuring and assessing indicators of vulnerability. These include external—sudden shocks and continued stresses—and internal indicators, such as defenselessness or inability to cope with incapacities. [5] Vulnerability research covers a complex, multidisciplinary field including development and poverty studies, public health, climate studies, security studies, engineering, geography, political ecology, and disaster risk management (as well as risk management). [6] This research is of importance and interest for organizations trying to reduce vulnerability [7] – especially as related to poverty and other Millennium Development Goals. Many institutions are conducting interdisciplinary research on vulnerability. A forum that brings many of the current researchers on vulnerability together is the Expert Working Group (EWG). Researchers are currently working to refine definitions of "vulnerability", measurement and assessment methods, and effective communication of research to decision makers. [8] [9]
Social vulnerability is one dimension of vulnerability that responds to multiple stressors (agent responsible for stress) and shocks, including abuse, social exclusion and natural hazards. Social vulnerability refers to the inability of people, organizations, and societies to withstand adverse impacts from multiple stressors to which they are exposed. These impacts are due in part to characteristics inherent in social interactions, institutions, and systems of cultural values. [10] [11] It was also found that marital status, employment, and income have an impact on the level of vulnerability presented in individuals. [12] In this respect, there is a need to place an increased emphasis on assets and entitlements for understanding 'catastrophe' as opposed to solely the strength or severity of shocks. [13] The capacity of individuals, communities and systems to survive, adapt, transform, and grow in the face of stress and shocks increase when conditions require it. [14] Building resilience is about making people, communities, and systems better prepared to withstand catastrophic events—both natural and man-made—and able to bounce back more quickly and emerge stronger from these shocks and stresses. [15]
A window of vulnerability (WOV) is a time frame within which defensive measures are diminished, compromised, or lacking. [16]
A cognitive vulnerability, in cognitive psychology, is an erroneous belief, cognitive bias, or pattern of thought that is believed to predispose the individual to psychological problems. [17] Cognitive vulnerability is in place before the symptoms of psychological disorders start to appear, such as high neuroticism. [18] After the individual encounters a stressful experience, the cognitive vulnerability shapes a maladaptive response that may lead to a psychological disorder. [17] In psychopathology, cognitive vulnerability is constructed from schema models, hopelessness models, and attachment theory. [19] The attachment theory states that humans need to develop a close bond with their caregivers. When there is a disruption in the child-parent bonding relationship it may be associated with cognitive vulnerability and depression. [20] Attentional bias is a form of cognitive bias that can lead to cognitive vulnerability. Allocating a danger level to a threat depends on the urgency or intensity of the threshold. [21] Anxiety is not associated with selective orientation. [22]
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Brené Brown defines vulnerability as "uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure." Brown goes on to suggest that vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage; we allow ourselves to be seen when we are vulnerable. [24] Brené Brown teaches her followers that vulnerability is typically thought of as the center of emotions, such as grief, shame, fear, and disappointment, but it is also the center and birthplace of love, belonging, authenticity, creativity, courage, and accountability. [25] Selective reinforcement and modeling has been used to help children learn from a young age how to regulate and take accountability for their emotions. Unpleasant emotional states are managed by their subjective discomfort. [26] Emotional vulnerability is also impacted by respondents that express feelings of sadness about the uncertainty of climate change. [27] Increasing awareness and impact leads to heightened emotional responses. Along with this, emotional vulnerability can affect the physical well-being of older adults when they suppress their emotions in highly distressing situations. [28] When these vulnerabilities are supported through conversation with an emotionally safe "other," this vulnerability can lead to resilience and the capacity to support others. [29]
In military terminology, vulnerability is a subset of survivability, the others being susceptibility and recoverability. Vulnerability is defined in various ways depending on the nation and service arm concerned, but in general it refers to the near-instantaneous effects of a weapon attack. In aviation it is defined as the inability of an aircraft to withstand the damage caused by the man-made hostile environment. [30] In some definitions, recoverability (damage control, firefighting, restoration of capability) is included in vulnerability. Some military services develop their own concept of vulnerability. [31]
Political vulnerability can be understood as "the weakness of the democratic system, with its negative effects on the efficiency of public policies, the legitimacy of the government action, limited participation of citizens and the private sector in national efforts, linkage with local governments and civil organizations, the handling and management of emergencies, processing of citizen's demands and needs, and the capacity to meet them." [32] Democratic backsliding is a direct result of political vulnerability, and has been documented across the globe throughout history. [33] [34] Political vulnerability can also refer to elected officials' or political candidates' chances of election, with municipal and local elections often signifying a shift one way or the other on a national scale. [35]
Invulnerability is a common feature found in science fiction and fantasy, particularly in superhero fiction, as depicted in novels, comic books and video games. In such stories, it is a quality that makes a character impervious to pain, damage or loss of health. There are many levels of invulnerability, just like there are many level of immortality (the highest level is absolute immortality). Many superheroes in comic books have invulnerability but it is often superhuman invulnerability (aka Strength-Based Invulnerability). It means that these superheroes develop a form of relative invulnerability, the user becoming impossible to harm by beings or forces less powerful than themselves. They are immune to most kinds of attacks but they can still be hurt or even killed by stronger characters.
In video games, it can be found in the form of "power-ups" or cheats; when activated via cheats, it is often referred to as "god mode". Generally, it does not protect the player from certain instant-death hazards, most notably "bottomless" pits from which, even if the player were to survive the fall, they would be unable to escape. As a rule, invulnerability granted by power-ups is temporary, and wears off after a set amount of time, while invulnerability cheats, once activated, remain in effect until deactivated, or the end of the level is reached. "Depending on the game in question, invulnerability to damage may or may not protect the player from non-damage effects, such as being immobilized or sent flying." [36]
In mythology, talismans, charms, and amulets were created by magic users for the purpose of making the wearer immune to injury from both mystic and mundane weapons. [37]
Hill, Duggan, and Lapsley state in their article that it is commonly accepted that teenagers have no regard for physical danger, which might indicate that they have a sense of danger invulnerability. Additionally, they predicted that the teenagers might have a sense of psychological invulnerability, or a sense of being able to remain unaffected by negative thoughts and emotions. In order to test the effects of both types of invulnerability, the researchers used the Adolescent Invulnerability Scale created by Lapsley and Hill in 2010, which includes twenty statements assessing to what extent the adolescents felt invulnerable psychologically and in danger situations. [38]
Hill et. al found that having a sense of psychological invulnerability benefitted adolescents in combatting negative emotions such as depression. Adolescents who rated themselves as more psychologically invulnerable demonstrated more effective coping mechanisms during times of stress or depression. This lead the researchers to believe that psychological invulnerability during adolescence is beneficial for identity formation.
Danger invulnerability highly correlated with illegal or criminal activity but had no correlation with mental health. However, danger invulnerability was able to effectively predict "delinquency, lifetime drug use, and drug use frequency." Gender differences in the data showed that adolescent males were more likely to feel invulnerable to danger and psychological effects. The researchers did not observe any difference between the ages of participants. [39]
In this study, Lapsley and Hill (2010) created the AIS for the purpose of studying the invulnerability of college students in Barnett's emerging adulthood (hyperlink) stage of life. Researchers predicted a positive correlation between the adolescents' and emerging adults' scores and subsequently found said correlation. They observed no significant differences in negative and positive optimism biases, which were other elements of the same study. But, as predicted, male participants scored higher on both areas of invulnerability.
High danger invulnerability strongly correlated with social issues, such as risk behavior and substance use. Both types of invulnerability, psychological and danger invulnerability, proved to be high predictors of self-esteem problems in emerging adulthood.
Psychological trauma is an emotional response caused by severe distressing events that are outside the normal range of human experiences. It must be understood by the affected person as directly threatening the affected person or their loved ones with death, severe bodily injury, or sexual violence; indirect exposure, such as from watching television news, may be extremely distressing and can produce an involuntary and possibly overwhelming physiological stress response, but does not produce trauma per se. Examples include violence, rape, or a terrorist attack.
Risk perception is the subjective judgement that people make about the characteristics and severity of a risk. Risk perceptions often differ from statistical assessments of risk since they are affected by a wide range of affective, cognitive, contextual, and individual factors. Several theories have been proposed to explain why different people make different estimates of the dangerousness of risks. Three major families of theory have been developed: psychology approaches, anthropology/sociology approaches and interdisciplinary approaches.
Psychological resilience is the ability to cope mentally and emotionally with a crisis, or to return to pre-crisis status quickly.
Emotional dysregulation is characterized by an inability flexibly to respond to and manage emotional states, resulting in intense and prolonged emotional reactions that deviate from social norms, given the nature of the environmental stimuli encountered. Such reactions not only deviate from accepted social norms but also surpass what is informally deemed appropriate or proportional to the encountered stimuli.
Teenage rebellion is a part of social development in adolescents in order for them to develop an identity independent from their parents or family and a capacity for independent decision-making. They may experiment with different roles, behaviors, and ideologies as part of this process of developing an identity. Teenage rebellion has been recognized within psychology as a set of behavioral traits that supersede class, culture, or race; some psychologists, however, have disputed the universality of the phenomenon. According to Terror Management Theory, the child's allegiance to parental authority and worldviews can weaken after the discovery that parents, like themselves and everyone else, are mortal. This realization creates an unconscious need for security that is broader than what the parents alone provide. This can lead to new cultural allegiances, in the search for a more enduring sense of meaning. Teenagers seek to perceive themselves a valued contributor to aspects of culture that more convincingly outlive or transcend the mortal individual's lifespan. However, since the parents also instill their cultural beliefs onto the child, if the child does not come to associate their parents' mortality with their cultural beliefs, the chances of rebellion decrease.
An emotional bias is a distortion in cognition and decision making due to emotional factors.
In its broadest sense, social vulnerability is one dimension of vulnerability to multiple stressors and shocks, including abuse, social exclusion and natural hazards. Social vulnerability refers to the inability of people, organizations, and societies to withstand adverse impacts from multiple stressors to which they are exposed. These impacts are due in part to characteristics inherent in social interactions, institutions, and systems of cultural values.
Childhood trauma is often described as serious adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Children may go through a range of experiences that classify as psychological trauma; these might include neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse, witnessing abuse of a sibling or parent, or having a mentally ill parent. These events have profound psychological, physiological, and sociological impacts and can have negative, lasting effects on health and well-being such as unsocial behaviors, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and sleep disturbances. Similarly, children whose mothers have experienced traumatic or stressful events during pregnancy have an increased risk of mental health disorders and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
According to Alberts, Elkind, and Ginsberg the personal fable "is the corollary to the imaginary audience. Thinking of themselves as the center of attention, the adolescent comes to believe that it is because they are special and unique.” It is found during the formal operational stage in Piagetian theory, along with the imaginary audience. Feelings of invulnerability are also common. The term "personal fable" was first coined by the psychologist David Elkind in his 1967 work Egocentrism in Adolescence.
The self-regulation of emotion or emotion regulation is the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed. It can also be defined as extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions. The self-regulation of emotion belongs to the broader set of emotion regulation processes, which includes both the regulation of one's own feelings and the regulation of other people's feelings.
The framing effect is a cognitive bias in which people decide between options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations. Individuals have a tendency to make risk-avoidant choices when options are positively framed, while selecting more loss-avoidant options when presented with a negative frame. In studies of the bias, options are presented in terms of the probability of either losses or gains. While differently expressed, the options described are in effect identical. Gain and loss are defined in the scenario as descriptions of outcomes, for example, lives lost or saved, patients treated or not treated, monetary gains or losses.
Motivated reasoning is a cognitive and social response in which individuals, consciously or sub-consciously, allow emotion-loaded motivational biases to affect how new information is perceived. Individuals tend to favor evidence that coincides with their current beliefs and reject new information that contradicts them, despite contrary evidence.
A cognitive vulnerability in cognitive psychology is an erroneous belief, cognitive bias, or pattern of thought that predisposes an individual to psychological problems. The vulnerability exists before the symptoms of a psychological disorder appear. After the individual encounters a stressful experience, the cognitive vulnerability shapes a maladaptive response that increases the likelihood of a psychological disorder.
Expressive suppression is defined as the intentional reduction of the facial expression of an emotion. It is a component of emotion regulation.
Bullying is abusive social interaction between peers and can include aggression, harassment, and violence. Bullying is typically repetitive and enacted by those who are in a position of power over the victim. A growing body of research illustrates a significant relationship between bullying and emotional intelligence.
The effects of climate change on mental health and wellbeing are being documented as the consequences of climate change become more tangible and impactful. This is especially the case for vulnerable populations and those with pre-existing serious mental illness. There are three broad pathways by which these effects can take place: directly, indirectly or via awareness. The direct pathway includes stress-related conditions caused by exposure to extreme weather events. These include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Scientific studies have linked mental health to several climate-related exposures. These include heat, humidity, rainfall, drought, wildfires and floods. The indirect pathway can be disruption to economic and social activities. An example is when an area of farmland is less able to produce food. The third pathway can be of mere awareness of the climate change threat, even by individuals who are not otherwise affected by it. This especially manifests in the form of anxiety over the quality of life for future generations.
Early childhood trauma refers to various types of adversity and traumatic events experienced during the early years of a person's life. This is deemed the most critical developmental period in human life by psychologists. A critical period refers to a sensitive time during the early years of childhood in which children may be more vulnerable to be affected by environmental stimulation. These traumatic events can include serious illness, natural disasters, family violence, sudden separation from a family member, being the victim of abuse, or suffering the loss of a loved one. Traumatic experiences in early childhood can result in severe consequences throughout adulthood, for instance developing post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or anxiety. The effects of this trauma can be experienced very differently depending on factors such as how long the trauma was, how severe and even the age of the child when it occurred. Negative childhood experiences can have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. However, not all children who are exposed to negative stimuli in early childhood will be affected severely in later life; some children come out unscathed after being faced with traumatic events, which is known as resilience. Many factors can account for the invulnerability displayed by certain children in response to adverse social conditions: gender, vulnerability, social support systems, and innate character traits. Much of the research in this area has referred to the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE) study. The ACE study found several protective factors against developing mental health disorders, including mother-child relations, parental health, and community support. However, having adverse childhood experiences creates long-lasting impacts on psychosocial functioning, such as a heightened awareness of environmental threats, feelings of loneliness, and cognitive deficits. Individuals with ACEs are more prone to developing severe symptoms than individuals in the same diagnostic category.
Social emotional development represents a specific domain of child development. It is a gradual, integrative process through which children acquire the capacity to understand, experience, express, and manage emotions and to develop meaningful relationships with others. As such, social emotional development encompasses a large range of skills and constructs, including, but not limited to: self-awareness, joint attention, play, theory of mind, self-esteem, emotion regulation, friendships, and identity development.
The most commonly used definition of school belonging comes from a 1993 academic article by researchers Carol Goodenow and Kathleen Grady, who describe school belonging as "the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school social environment." The construct of school belonging involves feeling connected with and attached to one's school. It also encompasses involvement and affiliation with one's school community. Conversely, students who do not feel a strong sense of belonging within their school environment are frequently described as being alienated or disaffected. There are a number of terms within educational research that are used interchangeably with school belonging, including school connectedness, school attachment, and school engagement.
The psychological impacts of climate change concerns effects that climate change can have on individuals' mental and emotional well-being. They may also relate to more generalised effects on groups and their behaviours, such as the urge to migrate from affected areas of the globe to areas perceived as less affected. These impacts can manifest in various ways and affect people of all ages and backgrounds. Some of the key psychological impacts of climate change include: emotional states such as eco-anxiety, ecological grief, eco-anger or solastalgia. While troublesome, such emotions may not appear immediately harmful and can lead to a rational response to the degradation of the natural world motivating adaptive action. However, there can be other effects on health, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for instance, as a result of witnessing or seeing reports of massive wildfires, which may be more dangerous.
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