Coping with political violence in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Recent community based research, employing a self-assessed measure of psychological distress, has suggested that people in Northern Ireland may be coping relatively well with the stress of continuing political violence. This paper reports a first direct investigation of coping in Northern Ireland. Using two scales from the Folkman and Lazarus Ways of Coping Questionnaire—Distancing and seeking Social Support—an attempt was made to investigate the role of coping in relation to local levels of violence, the appraisal of violence, gender and trait neutoticism. The results indicated that trait neuroticism was not related to the appraisal of levels of violence, but that appraisal was related to both types of coping. In particular, those who perceived the violence to be more serious reported using less distancing, while they also reported seeking the most social support. In addition more women reported seeking social support compared to men. Finally those who lived in a high violence area were more likely to report using distancing than were those from a less violence prone area. These results were taken to support the contention that some form of denial may be the main form of coping in Northern Ireland, and that coping is related more to the appraisal of violence than to actual violence levels, while the appraisal of violence is in turn not related to trait neuroticism.