Undivided trauma in a divided Cyprus: Modified emotional Stroop study

The purpose of the study was to examine the subliminal existence of war-related trauma in the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities in Cyprus. Previous research has demonstrated that Cypriots, regardless of their ethnicity have been affected by many psychological burdens, including anxiety and trauma related symptoms due to the wars in Cyprus (1963, 1974). The emotional Stroop task has been widely used to determine the presence of PTSD and its impact on executive functions. Hence, it was hypothesized that traumatic stress specific to the wars in Cyprus would be evident through interference of information processing of war-related words in a modified version of the Emotional Stroop Task specific to the conflicts in Cyprus.

Two versions of the modified emotional Stroop task for Cyprus (MEST-CY) were developed in the two languages (Greek and Turkish) spoken by the 2 communities, with neutral and war-related words relevant for each community. A sample of 111 Cypriots from both ethnic backgrounds (56 Turkish Cypriots, 55 Greek Cypriots) took part.

Participants from both ethnicities showed significantly greater latency scores (interference) for war-related words compared to neutral words.

This is the first study to show emotional trauma and changes in cognitive functioning related specifically to the wars in Cyprus, in both communities. Due to its specificity in detecting attentional bias to war-related words which are specific to Cyprus, MEST-CY can serve as a useful assessment tool for the presence of war-related PTSD and as a pre- and posttask for PTSD intervention studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).