IUL School of Social Sciences Department of Social and Organizational Psychology (Mal) adjustment to societal crisis: a case study from the analysis of coping expressions on Social Media Cláudia Mariana Dias Silva Dissertation submitted as partial requirement for the conferral of Master in Social and Organizational Psychology Supervisor: Doctor Rui Gaspar de Carvalho, Assistant Professor/Research Fellow ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa July, 2015 (Mal) adjustment to societal crisis: a case study from the analysis of coping expressions on Social Media IUL School of Social Sciences Department of Social and Organizational Psychology (Mal) adjustment to societal crisis: a case study from the analysis of coping expressions on Social Media Cláudia Mariana Dias Silva Dissertation submitted as partial requirement for the conferral of Master in Social and Organizational Psychology Supervisor: Doctor Rui Gaspar de Carvalho, Assistant Professor/Research Fellow ISCTE - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa July, 2015 III (Mal) adjustment to societal crisis: a case study from the analysis of coping expressions on Social Media Acknowledgements I would like to primarly thank Professor Rui Gaspar for having accepted being my Thesis supervisor and for all the guidance he provided to me. I would also like to thank Professor Elizabeth Collins who, although not my official supervisor, helped me a lot through the process. Participants from different countries (USA, UK, Mozambique and Portugal) who showed themselves available to help me with the research, by filling in the questionnaires, are also very much appreciated. At last but not least, I want to thank the support of friends and family that have given me the encouragement I needed along my academic path. «For every action, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Plus a social media overreaction» - Tim Siedell, user from Twitter IV (Mal) adjustment to societal crisis: a case study from the analysis of coping expressions on Social Media Abstract The present research had the goal to explore how individuals perceived, reacted to and coped with the Ebola virus outbreak in 2014, which was considered to be a health epidemic. When confronted with public health events perceived as threats, people tend to adapt to them by individually and collectively make sense of them (e.g. concerning the source of contagion) and manage resources to best cope with the demands posed. One of the maladaptive side- effects of this sense making process occurs when individuals associate the epidemic and its related features to specific social groups, for example by blaming them for the outbreak and ultimately, stigmatizing. In the specific case of the Ebola epidemic, we aimed to comprehend whether it was 1) more associated to the African continent and its related social groups (Africans; African countries; …) than to other countries, as evidence of a Symbolic Othering effect; and 2) if there were natural manifestations of this othering, by means of coping with the perceived threat, in the form of escape and opposition coping strategies.. Hence, we aimed to demonstrate the Symbolic Othering effect by means of a web-based questionnaire in which participants estimated the percentage of cases of human contamination, in non-contaminated African and non-African countries. Secondly, we aimed to present evidence of naturally occurring instances of Symbolic Othering in the form of coping expressions collected on social media, namely Twitter. This multi-method approach allowed both a qualitative and quantitative analysis. Results showed a strong association between the Ebola epidemic and the African continent, with more human contamination cases identified in African countries, even though they had an actual zero percentage of cases. Moreover, the qualitative analysis of twitter data showed direct and indirect mentions to the social group – Africa/Africans/African countries – in addition to the identification of other groups to blame for the epidemic and its social amplification, such as the government, media and other targets. Overall, these results present themselves as a relevant for health crisis managers and communicators, given that Symbolic Othering effects may be found when people perceived health related events as threats, which may eventually lead into social stigmatization processes. Keywords: Ebola; coping; social media; Twitter; societal crisis; health epidemics V (Mal) adjustment to societal crisis: a case study from the analysis of coping expressions on Social Media Resumo A presente investigação teve como objetivo explorar de que forma os indivíduos percepcionaram, reagiram e lidaram com o surto do vírus Ébola em 2014, o qual foi considerado uma epidemia de saúde. Quando confrontadas com eventos de saúde pública avaliados enquanto ameaças, as pessoas tendem adaptar-se às mesmas, de forma individual e coletiva, de modo a conferir-lhes um sentido (por exemplo, em relação à fonte de contágio) e gerir recursos para melhor lidar com as exigências. Um dos efeitos colaterais deste processo de procura de sentido é desadaptativo, dado que consiste em associar a epidemia e as suas características a grupos sociais específicos, por exemplo, culpando-os e, eventualmente, estigmatizando-os. No caso específico da epidemia do Ébola, o nosso objetivo foi compreender se: 1) esta estaria mais associada ao continente Africano/países africanos (em comparação a outros países), como evidência de um efeito de othering simbólico; e 2) se existiam expressões naturais deste othering, através de estratégias de enfrentamento como o escape e a oposição. Deste modo, procurámos demonstrar o efeito de othering simbólico através da aplicação de um questionário online, no qual os aprticipantes estimavam a percentagem de casos de contaminação humana em países africanos e não-africanos, todos não contaminados. Segundo, procurámos apresentar evidências de othering simbólico refletidas em estratégias específicas de enfrentamento, extraídas dos media sociais, nomeadamente, do Twitter. Esta abordagem multi-método permitiu uma análise qualitativa e quantitativa. Os resultados mostram uma forte associação entre a epidemia do Ébola e o continente Africano, com mais casos de contaminação humana identificados nos países africanos, apesar da percentagem real ser de zero casos. A análise qualitativa dos dados recolhidos no Twitter demonstrou menções diretas e indiretas ao grupo social – África / Africanos / países africanos – bem como identificação de outros grupos sociais – por exemplo, o governo, os meios de comunicação e outras entidades – que foram alvos de culpabilização não só pela epidemia em si, como também pela sua amplificação social. De um modo geral, estes resultados são relevantes para gestores e comunicadores de crises de saúde, tendo em conta que os efeitos do othering simbólico podem ser encontrados quando as pessoas percecionam eventos relacionados com saúde enquanto ameaças e que podem, eventualmente, resultar em processos de estigmatização social. Palavras-chave: Ebola; estratégias de enfrentamento; media sociais; Twitter; crise social; epidemias VI (Mal) adjustment to societal crisis: a case study from the analysis of coping expressions on Social Media Index Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... IV Abstract .................................................................................................................................................. V Resumo .................................................................................................................................................. VI CHAPTER I - Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Health crises as perceived by individuals ............................................................................................ 2 Crises appraisal: threat vs. challenge................................................................................................... 3 Coping with threats and challenges ..................................................................................................... 4 Why is the Ebola epidemic a health crisis? ......................................................................................... 7 Distancing from and blaming out-groups as ways of coping: the Symbolic Othering effect .............. 9 Coping on social media ..................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER II – Empirical Studies ......................................................................................................... 15 Study 1 – Web-based survey ............................................................................................................. 16 Study 2 – Social media analysis ........................................................................................................ 18 CHAPTER III – Study 1 ....................................................................................................................... 21 Sample ............................................................................................................................................... 21 Procedure .......................................................................................................................................... 21 Results & Discussion ........................................................................................................................