Introduction
From the vulnerability approach (Cardona, 2001; Caviedes, 2015) the Latin American context, and specifically the Chilean context, presents an accumulation of weaknesses that can be grouped into different physical, economic, social or educational dimensions, which go beyond its geographical conditions (Ayala and Olcina, 2002; Blaikie et al., 2006; Rojas and Martínez, 2012). Romero and Romero (2015) identify that the effects of natural disasters depend largely on political-ecological factors that lead to their repercussions not being experienced in the same way throughout society, with the most vulnerable and socially excluded segments being the most affected, economically and territorially. Hewitt (1996) illustrates how the social structure constitutes a determining factor when considering the consequences of a natural disaster, pointing out that, in the evidence found, the distribution and amount of human losses in natural disasters is directly related to the socioeconomic condition of the affected people.
In recent decades, the condition of vulnerability in Chile has been aggravated by factors such as rapid urban growth and environmental damage, which has led to a decrease in the quality of life of the population, devastation of the country’s natural resources, a deterioration of natural landscapes and an impact on the national culture (Cardona, 2001; Instituto Nacional de Derechos Humanos, 2018).
Traditionally, the study of the consequences of natural disasters was from the clinical setting, fundamentally, from the evidence of impacts such as the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Ayala and de Paúl Ochotorena, 2004; Friedman et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2018) which does not consider mental health as a state of well-being that explores the perception of individuals of their own capacities and their potential contribution to the community (World Health Organization, 2013). This vision of trauma and disasters has had several detractors (Creamer, 2000; Cova et al., 2011; Crespo and Gómez, 2012) who question the definition of what constitutes a traumatic event (Brewin et al., 2009; Crespo and Gómez, 2012) because the clinical criteria presents a restrictive perspective on the impacts when it comes to accounting for more complex phenomena such as political violence or disasters which, in other words, refers to the lack of consideration of the context in these events (Blanco et al., 2016; Bennett et al., 2019). This has led to an overestimation of the diagnosis of PTSD and the assessment of the population in need for clinical intervention, along with an underestimation of the broader impact that these events present in communities (Bonanno et al., 2010). Moreover, the effects or consequences of disasters would be related to the social scenario in which they arise (Cova and Rincón, 2010).
In the face of these limitations, two key elements emerge to understand the effects of disasters studies: first, disasters can also elicit positive responses or effects, being a source of new learning or personal growth (Tedeschi and Calhoun, 1996; Bonanno, 2004; Vera et al., 2006) and second, that disasters cause impacts on communities, characterized by a weakened access to social support, impairment in interpersonal relationships and a decrease in the sense of community (Bonanno et al., 2010), disarticulating the social fabric, cohesion and participation, while affecting the leadership of community actors (Barrales et al., 2013).
Leiva-Bianchi et al. (2018) conducted a meta-analysis of the psychosocial impact of disasters considering war and catastrophe events, which precisely considered the effects on the individual, family and social environment of the populations affected by an event. These authors conclude that it is possible to understand the impact of these events through two independent axes: one, related to the “negative effects” (post-traumatic stress, stress, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, hate responses, disruptive behavior, and general psychopathology) and, the other one related to the “positive effects” (coping, post-traumatic growth, social support, emotional well-being and positive emotions). A second axis is related to “protection versus exposure” in which it is identified that at the end of protection there would be a maximum of resources such as social support or community participation to cope with the events, while at the end of exposure to the event these resources would be minimal or non-existent.
A relevant aspect is that traumas have a social nature, that they arise and are maintained in a context (Martín-Baró, 2003) in which, according to Blanco et al. (2016) it is of interest to place oneself in the previous situations (pre-traumatic situation), in the immediate impacts on people (destruction of beliefs about oneself) and in the community impacts (community destruction). Complementarily, there are studies that explain looting behaviors such as those identified in the 2010 Chile earthquake, based on the country’s pre-disaster conditions like social inequality and the predominance of a consumer society (Grandón et al., 2014). Other studies included the one where Mandavia and Bonanno (2018) investigate the effects of environmental stressors, identifying that disasters such as those produced by hurricanes and a subsequent economic crisis will generate a high impact on the mental health of the exposed community. Accordingly, one way to prepare communities and reduce their vulnerability to disasters is constituted by strategies that promote community participation and the prevention of the loss of psychosocial resources (Smith and Freedy, 2000). These strategies constitute an essential element in reducing levels of social vulnerability and would enable communities to access social and governmental resources to cope with these events. The evidence in natural disasters confirms that people who perceive social support and present a willingness to community organization have greater social cohesion, lower indicators of individual disorders (Figueroa et al., 2010), better indicators of well-being and post-traumatic growth (Villagrán et al., 2014; Wlodarczyk et al., 2016a,b).
Complementary to these findings, the approach to positive and adaptive aspects in individuals and communities implies considering the study of well-being as an essential component of health, as proposed by the World Health Organization (2003). Blanco and Díaz (2005) state that well-being includes social needs, problems and collective aspirations, in addition to support and social relationships which, in turn, are associated with the set of resources derived from the network of interpersonal relationships in which an individual and his community are inserted (Putnam, 2000; Keyes and Shapiro, 2004). In this regard, Keyes (1998) proposes the notion of social well-being that integrates social and cultural elements that promote mental health, in which social contact, interpersonal relationships, roots, community contacts and social participation would increase well-being in the communities. On the one hand, relationships have been found between social well-being and variables of different kinds such as life satisfaction, psychological well-being, resilience or personality styles (Zubieta and Delfino, 2010; Alzugaray et al., 2018). On the other hand, social well-being is associated with a sense of community (Tempier et al., 2012), specifically, where this sense of community would act as a predictor of social well-being (Albanesi et al., 2007). Kaniasty (2012) in a longitudinal study 1 year after a flood, found that participation in altruistic communities was associated with better interpersonal and community relationships and, conversely, dissatisfaction in such relationships predicted lower levels of well-being. Therefore, exposure to disasters mobilizes different individual and collective resources that contribute to later well-being, as found in the 2010 Chile earthquake (García et al., 2014; Villagrán et al., 2014; Wlodarczyk et al., 2016a,b, 2017).
In the Chilean context, the study of disasters has increased since the 2010 earthquake, and has combined research on clinical and community variables. In the first case, several studies evaluated PTSD, either in children and adolescents (Rincón et al., 2014), just in adolescents (Díaz et al., 2012) and in adults (Leiva-Bianchi, 2011). From the studies cited, it should be noted that, although PTSD was indeed found between 6 and 30%, the highest percentage of the population did not meet criteria for mental health pathology in the reviewed contexts. In contrast, other studies in Chile have considered the negative and positive community impacts of the earthquake: a qualitative research on people living in temporary camps found an increase in the sense of belonging in those affected who rebuilt their homes in the same place, however, they also reported increases in the levels of conflict and violence in the community (Grandón et al., 2016). In addition, Rojas et al. (2014) evaluated coastal communities in the Biobío region affected by the 2010 earthquake and tsunami, finding a decrease in household income, increased insecurity of the population and a slow reconstruction process. Evidence of well-being in the context of the 2010 earthquake has been found to be associated with communal growth and adaptive coping strategies (Leiva-Bianchi et al., 2012; Villagrán et al., 2014; Wlodarczyk et al., 2016b, 2017).
In this regard, early results have addressed the communal aspects that arise in disaster-affected communities, specifically through communal coping. This coping occurs when one or more individuals perceive a stressor as “our problem” and activate a shared or collaborative coping process: this involves a shared assessment of stress and a shared action orientation to manage stress in a group or community (Lyons et al., 1998). Thus, coping has been found to occur when there is a shared collective experience, which also involves a shared assessment of the stressful event, as well as a shared communication about stress and, finally, a mobilization in people to act collectively (Lyons et al., 1998; Leprince et al., 2018; Rentscher, 2019). In this way, a shared process is emphasized that leads to a communal confrontation, which makes possible better possibilities to deal with the impacts of the natural disaster (Villagrán et al., 2014; Wlodarczyk et al., 2016a,b; García and Wlodarczyk, 2018). In this context of shared coping, two key concepts emerge to understand how it occurs: the communal appraisal associated with the shared valuation of the experience of stress, which has been addressed in the studies by Lazarus and Folkman, and the social sharing of emotions raised by Bernard Rimé.
The notion of appraisal identifies a cognitive process in which an individual explores and assesses whether and how his environment is favorable to his or her well-being (Lazarus, 1966; Folkman et al., 1986). In particular, the appraisal presents a preponderant role in people’s evaluation before experiencing emotions and implies an adaptation to changing situations of the environment, which represents a subjective evaluation of the goals, objectives and the capacity of coping (Schmidt et al., 2010).
In this sense, it is of interest when the situations of the environment affect a group of people and the assessment they can make as a whole, especially when dealing with high intensity events that challenge individual resources (Villagrán et al., 2014). Although there are studies that have raised the notion of reappraisal as a communal coping strategy (Wlodarczyk et al., 2016a,b), here we consider communal appraisal as the entire collective evaluation that is made of the emotions in the face of events that equally affect a group. Hence, through the communal appraisal, the cognitive work of assessment is prevented from being solely individual, which could be directed to less adaptive forms, such as rumination (Weiss and Berger, 2010), which could impact on people’s basic beliefs (Janoff-Bulman, 1992), or be oriented toward cognitive avoidance behaviors or desires for a magical change in the problem (Villagrán et al., 2014).
On the other hand, the social sharing of emotions has been identified as the translation of an emotional experience into a socially shared language (Rimé et al., 1998; Rimé, 2009), which would allow the reconstruction of people’s beliefs through the transmission of shared feelings and which promotes the construction of a collective emotional atmosphere (Páez et al., 2007). At this point, living an emotional experience implies the need to share it with others, especially one of high intensity (Martínez Sánchez, 2011). In a disaster context, this has been identified more as a coping phase (Páez et al., 2001), rather than as an exchange that promotes wider social effects related to social structure, social norms or interpersonal relationships, among others (Rimé et al., 2020).
Conclusion
Based on the evidence that increased community action is a protective factor for mental health in the face of traumatic events (Gallagher et al., 2019), the study addressed how individuals and groups use community resources when dealing with the impacts of a natural disaster and, in this case, one of the most devastating earthquakes such as Chile’s 27F in 2010. The findings presented here support that people develop such resources as they experience the impacts and potential risks they face as a community, which are expressed in shared emotions and evaluations.
In this case, it is demonstrated that the intensity of trauma as an individual response experienced to the impact of the earthquake has a greater effect on the subsequent perception of social well-being through the processes of social sharing of emotions and communal appraisal. Although such processes have been specifically identified as collective coping strategies (Krum and Bandeira, 2008; Páez et al., 2013; Palacios and Barrios, 2013; Villagrán et al., 2014; Wlodarczyk et al., 2016a,b), it is proposed that they acquire relevance in different post-disaster phases and not only as a set of strategies involving different adaptive and maladaptive responses. On the contrary, according to the results of the multiple mediation model, the social expression of emotions and the communal appraisal would form a route so that the individual reactions could be projected later on in a social well-being. Together, the SSE and CA conform processes that would operate immediately, without waiting for the deployment of other strategies of collective confrontation. On the one hand, these processes would activate community organizing actions to address the demands of the disaster (e.g., rescue actions, provision of basic services, search for food; Pérez-Sales, 2004; Internacional Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2008; Comité Permanente entre Organismos, 2009). On the other hand, the organization would make it possible to address other dangers commonly associated with natural disasters, to avoid looting or provide security actions in the face of rumors of threats from other groups (Quarantelli, 2008; Sanzana, 2010). Many of these actions would be activated in the face of difficulties in effectively coordinating government actions in natural disaster contexts (Bouckaert et al., 2010).
Although there is evidence affirming that sharing with others represents a negative experience that leads to the development of symptoms and/or disorders (Seery et al., 2008), the social sharing of emotions in a natural disaster context possess a different interpretation: the way people share their experience of distress and fear can, in itself, sustain their impact. According to Rimé (2009) sharing favors the recognition and communication of emotions in a context where they would not be judged or misunderstood and, on the contrary, would provide group cohesion, the strengthening of social bonds and would reveal the resistance of a community (Rimé et al., 2020).
In another sense, cognitive theories of emotion have suggested that they are not related to the event that gives rise to them, but rather to a cognitive assessment (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984). In this sense, appraisal involves not only evaluating an event, but also people’s behaviors, thoughts, or feelings (Manstead and Fischer, 2001). Hence, the latter assessment will guide us in the realization of our own evaluation of emotional events and, in a social context, the appraisal may occur when other people’s emotions trigger or modify our assessment of what is happening (Parkinson and Simons, 2009). At this point, the notion of the “communal or shared” implied by SSE and CA is relevant, as the findings show that the journey occurs when emotions are shared in an equally communal context of threat, strengthening social bonds, but that this process, by itself, does not lead to a resolution of the situations (Rimé et al., 2020). At this stage, an equally communal assessment (or what has been identified as a social appraisal) that would value aspects shared with others that can be expressed in a social identity (Tajfel et al., 1979) that would facilitate the identification of tasks and actions to be shared (Parkinson, 2019) to address such threats would operate. These results also provide guidance on the actions that can be achieved later in such a way that they facilitate the deployment of adaptive collective coping strategies that make it possible to adjust to the needs that arise in other post-disaster phases. There is abundant evidence that collective coping promotes better individual and collective responses to the demands of a disaster, however, its full deployment will take time and if the security, economic, political or psychosocial conditions are not in place, it may lead to unexpected or maladaptive responses.
Among the limitations of the study, it is reported that the evaluation that is carried out 4 years after the event that could generate responses associated with possible effects or memory biases after this time of the earthquake. Some findings suggest that, in the face of events such as violence, information from the environment could be positively analyzed to protect personal image (Bilbao et al., 2011). In addition, it is found that the Chilean population has a permanent exposure to the effects of earthquakes that have occurred after 27F (see Torres-Méndez et al., 2018) which could reduce the perception of damage and strengthen a positive social functioning. It may be more pertinent to conduct a longitudinal study that considers the medium- and long-term effects of experiences of this type.
Another aspect to highlight is the tendency to promote an irrefutable reading of the forms of organization and collective coping of the experiences associated with the earthquake, in line with informed findings (Villagrán et al., 2014; Wlodarczyk et al., 2016a,b). However, it would be of interest in future studies to consider the negative impacts of living a collective traumatic experience, for example, through the notion of psychosocial trauma formulated by Martín-Baró (1990) which accounts for the impact or “social wounding” from collective events such as violence. This would favor the expansion of the findings and exploring collective dynamics of distrust or resistance to change that persist. The vision of psychosocial trauma has been expanded to address scenarios such as the environmental damage caused by oil extraction in Ecuador (Sanandres and Otálora, 2015), the psychosocial effects on indigenous communities by the installation of dams in Mexico (Jiménez, 2014), and the impact of massive railroad accidents in Uruguay (Loarche, 2015), so it would be interesting to apply it to disaster contexts.
Despite this, it is worth considering that collective actions that could be developed among friends, family, neighbors and community members would encourage adaptive coping strategies at an immediate later stage, but do not necessarily entail medium- to long-term strategic actions aimed at disaster prevention and/or recovery (Sandoval et al., 2018). This limitation is associated with the wide variety of structural factors underlying risk, which cannot be driven by community actions (Maskrey, 2011). At this point, it is expected that State support will not only be oriented toward mitigating the effects of a disaster, but will also make it possible for reconstruction to consider community resources that make active participation possible (Krause et al., 2009; Caviedes, 2015).