ILLUSIONS (AND SHATTERED ILLUSIONS) OF INVULNERABILITY - ADOLESCENTS IN NATURAL DISASTER

It is suggested that, even in the absence of emotional sequelae, victims of trauma continue to feel vulnerable to similar future victimization. We hypothesized this to be true even for adolescents who, theoretically, tend to view themselves as invulnerable to death itself. Subjects were 45 adolescents sampled from 12 high schools, most located in communities where known weather disasters occurred (i.e., flood, tornado, and/or lightning-strike). Subjects estimated the likelihood of dying from 24 lethal events including weather events, accidents, diseases, and acts of human agency. Results showed that personal experience with weather disasters was predictive of elevated subjective risks for death from future respective events. Group differences were not found to be attributable to differences in general perceived riskiness, gender, tendencies toward thrill seeking or attention to the news media. Analysis of a subgroup of lightning subjects suggest that such effects can last as long as 7 years.