The Biggest Psychological Experiment in History Is Running Now - Scientific American
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Faced with potentially traumatic events, “about 65 percent of people are going to show minimal psychological symptoms,” says clinical psychologist George Bonanno of Teacher’s College at Columbia University. Bonanno, who is an expert on resiliency, studies the aftermath of hurricanes, terrorist attacks, life-threatening injuries and epidemics such as the 2003 SARS outbreak. His research and that of others consistently show three common psychological responses to hardship. Two thirds of people follow a resilience trajectory and maintain relatively stable psychological and physical health. About 25 percent struggle temporarily with psychopathology such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder and then recover—a pattern known as the recovery trajectory. And 10 percent suffer lasting psychological distress. These results hold true across diverse populations and socioeconomic statuses. “We’re talking about everybody,” Bonanno says. On the other hand, the risk of psychiatric disorders is twice as high for people on the lowest economic rungs.
But the mental health effects of a crisis so sweeping and insidious may not adhere to this paradigm.
