Immediate emotional responses to the Southern California firestorms.

"The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Natural Hazards Center or the University of Colorado"

"This was also presented as a poster at the 102nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, CA, August,1994"

Bibliography: p. 11-13

It is often assumed that immediate emotional responses to a disaster will invariably and uniformly be negative. It is also commonly assumed that the severity of trauma has a "dose-response" relationship with the severity of distress experienced post-disaster. The present study tested the validity of these assumptions in a sample of residents from communities affected by the Southern California firestorms. The findings challenge several assumptions underlying prior disaster research, and offer the first systematic report of immediate emotional responses to disaster