What Good Are Positive Emotions in Crises? A Prospective Study of Resilience and Emotions Following the Terrorist Attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001

Abstract

Extrapolating from B. L. Fredrickson's (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, the authors hypothesized that positive emotions are active ingredients within trait resilience. U.S. college students (18 men and 28 women) were tested in early 2001 and again in the weeks following the September 11th terrorist attacks. Mediational analyses showed that positive emotions experienced in the wake of the attacks - gratitude, interest, love, and so forth - fully accounted for the relations between (a) precrisis resilience and later development of depressive symptoms and (b) precrisis resilience and postcrisis growth in psychological resources. Findings suggest that positive emotions in the aftermath of crises buffer resilient people against depression and fuel thriving, consistent with the broaden-and-build theory. Discussion touches on implications for coping.

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PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
What Good Are Positive Emotions in Crises? A Prospective Study
of Resilience and Emotions Following the Terrorist Attacks
on the United States on September 11th, 2001
Barbara L. Fredrickson
University of Michigan Michele M. Tugade
Boston College
Christian E. Waugh and Gregory R. Larkin
University of Michigan
Extrapolating from B. L. Fredrickson’s (1998, 2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, the
authors hypothesized that positive emotions are active ingredients within trait resilience. U.S. college
students (18 men and 28 women) were tested in early 2001 and again in the weeks following the
September 11th terrorist attacks. Mediational analyses showed that positive emotions experienced in the
wake of the attacks—gratitude, interest, love, and so forth—fully accounted for the relations between (a)
precrisis resilience and later development of depressive symptoms and (b) precrisis resilience and
postcrisis growth in psychological resources. Findings suggest that positive emotions in the aftermath of
crises buffer resilient people against depression and fuel thriving, consistent with the broaden-and-build
theory. Discussion touches on implications for coping.
The following historical summary has become all too familiar.
On September 11th, 2001, terrorists hijacked four U.S. passenger
planes. Two crashed into New York City’s twin World Trade
Center towers, a third crashed into U.S. military headquarters at
the Pentagon, outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth crashed in
Pennsylvania, missing its intended target. In addition to the hun-
dreds of people killed on board the airplanes and in the Pentagon,
nearly 3,000 people remained in the World Trade Center towers
when they collapsed from the impact. The September 11th terrorist
attacks produced more civilian casualties in a single day than has
any other event in U.S. history.
Beyond the extraordinary physical and financial devastation and
loss of human life, the September 11th attacks generated consid-
erable emotional turmoil among U.S. citizens. Early polling in the
days after the attacks found that 70% had cried about the tragedy
(Saad, 2001b), 52–70% felt depressed, 33–62% had trouble sleep-
ing (Institute for Social Research, 2001; Pew Charitable Trusts,
2001), and 66% had trouble concentrating (Institute for Social
Research, 2001). When asked about specific emotions experi-
enced, people most frequently mentioned anger and sadness (Saad,
2001b). Fear and anxiety also seemed prevalent: Sixty-three per-
cent of people polled said their personal sense of safety and
security had been shaken by the attacks (Saad, 2001b), and 54%
were worried that they or someone in their family would become
a victim of a terrorist attack, compared with 24% the previous year
(Gallup News Service, 2001).
Amidst this amalgam of anger, sadness, fear, and anxiety, pos-
itive emotions seem unwarranted, even inappropriate. Even so,
positive emotions are known to co-occur alongside negative emo-
tions during stressful circumstances (Folkman & Moskowitz,
2000). Indeed, intermixed experiences of positive emotions were
justifiable after the September 11th attacks. For instance, people
might have felt grateful to be alive or to know that their loved ones
were safe. They might also have felt keenly interested in the
country’s unfolding political, social, and spiritual responses. And
they might have also felt heightened love, drawing their loved ones
closer as an uncertain future shifted their social priorities (cf.
Fredrickson, 1995; Fredrickson & Carstensen, 1990). Indeed, sev-
Barbara L. Fredrickson, Department of Psychology and Research Center
for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research, University of
Michigan; Michele M. Tugade, Department of Psychology, Boston Col-
lege; Christian E. Waugh and Gregory R. Larkin, Department of Psychol-
ogy, University of Michigan.
This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health
Grant MH59615 and by an award from the John Templeton Foundation
and the American Psychological Association (2000 Templeton Positive
Psychology Prize). We thank Jeff Chappell for comments on a version of
this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Barbara
L. Fredrickson, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 525
East University Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1109. E-mail:
blf@umich.edu
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, Vol. 84, No. 2, 365–376
Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/03/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.84.2.365
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