TY - JOUR
T1 - Self-help and mutual assistance in the aftermath of a tsunami
T2 - How individual factors contribute to resolving difficulties
AU - Sugiura, Motoaki
AU - Ishibashi, Ryo
AU - Abe, Tsuneyuki
AU - Nouchi, Rui
AU - Honda, Akio
AU - Sato, Shosuke
AU - Muramoto, Toshiaki
AU - Imamura, Fumihiko
N1 - Funding Information:
M.S. was supported by Special Project Researches (http://irides.tohoku.ac.jp/topics_ project/index.html) (H24-A-5 and H25-A-4 to MS) from International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, and Topic-Setting Program to Advance Cutting-Edge Humanities and Social Sciences Research and KAKENHI 17H06219 from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (https://www.jsps.go.jp/english/index.html). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Sugiura et al.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - Self-aid and mutual assistance among victims are critical for resolving difficulties in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, but individual facilitative factors for such resolution processes are poorly understood. To identify such individual factors in the background (i.e., disaster damage and demographic) and personality domains considering different types of difficulty and resolution, we analyzed survey data collected in the 3-year aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. We first identified major types of difficulty using a cluster analysis of 18 difficulty domains and then explored individual factors that facilitated six types of resolution (self-help, request for help, help from family, help from an acquaintance, help through cooperation, and public assistance) of these difficulty types. We identified general life difficulties and medico-psychological difficulties as two broad types of difficulty; disaster damage contributed to both types, while some personality factors (e.g., neuroticism) exacerbated the latter. Disaster damage hampered self-resolution and forced a reliance on resolution through cooperation or public assistance. On the other hand, some demographic factors, such as being young and living in a three-generation household, facilitated resolution thorough the family. Several personality factors facilitated different types of resolution, primarily of general life difficulties; the problem-solving factor facilitated self-resolution, altruism, or stubbornness resolutions through requests, leadership resolution through acquaintance, and emotion-regulation resolution through public assistance. Our findings are the first to demonstrate the involvement of different individual, particularly personality, factors in survival in the complex social dynamics of this disaster stage. They may contribute to disaster risk mitigation, allowing sophisticated risk evaluation and community resilience building.
AB - Self-aid and mutual assistance among victims are critical for resolving difficulties in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, but individual facilitative factors for such resolution processes are poorly understood. To identify such individual factors in the background (i.e., disaster damage and demographic) and personality domains considering different types of difficulty and resolution, we analyzed survey data collected in the 3-year aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. We first identified major types of difficulty using a cluster analysis of 18 difficulty domains and then explored individual factors that facilitated six types of resolution (self-help, request for help, help from family, help from an acquaintance, help through cooperation, and public assistance) of these difficulty types. We identified general life difficulties and medico-psychological difficulties as two broad types of difficulty; disaster damage contributed to both types, while some personality factors (e.g., neuroticism) exacerbated the latter. Disaster damage hampered self-resolution and forced a reliance on resolution through cooperation or public assistance. On the other hand, some demographic factors, such as being young and living in a three-generation household, facilitated resolution thorough the family. Several personality factors facilitated different types of resolution, primarily of general life difficulties; the problem-solving factor facilitated self-resolution, altruism, or stubbornness resolutions through requests, leadership resolution through acquaintance, and emotion-regulation resolution through public assistance. Our findings are the first to demonstrate the involvement of different individual, particularly personality, factors in survival in the complex social dynamics of this disaster stage. They may contribute to disaster risk mitigation, allowing sophisticated risk evaluation and community resilience building.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0258325
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0258325
M3 - Article
C2 - 34618878
AN - SCOPUS:85116914783
VL - 16
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 10 October
M1 - e0258325
ER -