Appraisal of control and coping with air-raids

This study investigated the appraisal of control (secondary appraisal) and coping as reactions to the air-raids in the city of Zagreb. Coping was assessed with the Croatian version of Ways of Coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and secondary appraisal was operationalized as control over the occurrence and over the outcome/consequences of the air-raid. The hypotheses that appraisal of low control would yield more emotion-focused and passive coping, and that appraisal of high control would be linked with problem-focused and active coping, were not confirmed. The results were interpreted in terms of so-called emotional habituation. Additionally, some unique characteristics of the air-raid were identified and explained as the key variables in the interpretation of the obtained results: an air-raid is a very specific stressful situation, it is homogeneous in content, and it is a chronic and repeated stressor. The problems with generalization of these data to all stressful events were pointed out.