Interplay between social support tie formations and subjective mental health conditions in a community currency system in Japanese disaster-affected communities: The ambivalent effects of social capital

Abstract

A variety of community currency schemes have been implemented in Japanese disaster areas as a community-based tool to facilitate the revival of disaster-affected communities after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. One of the key variables in the recovery of these disaster-affected communities is the restoration of disaster survivors' subjective mental health conditions, yet little is known about how subjective mental health coevolves with the supportive connections emerging in the postdisaster stages. Using stochastic actor-based modelling, we show that social capital, referring to postdisaster emergent social support networks and broader engagement, not only helped 101 disaster victims overcome the mental impacts of the disaster but also empowered them to provide social support to others. However, a dilemma emerged regarding the greater engagement of residents with poor psychological statuses in supportive networks during postdisaster recovery periods, which led to differential and detrimental impacts on initially mentally healthier residents’ conditions through the contagion mechanism.