Title thesis: * Impact of Commemoration on Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Emotions in War-affected Individuals

Abstract

Abstract: Collective commemoration is a widespread accepted way of expressing war-related traumatic experiences. Participation in collective commemorations elicits negative emotions among its participants. However, the association between negative emotions and different subgroups of war-affected individuals is unclear. This study aims at testing whether there is a difference in negative emotion after watching the Dutch National Commemoration between survivors of the Second World War (WWII), veterans and refugees resettled in the Netherlands. Additionally, the relationship between posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and emotional reactions to the Dutch commemoration was tested. A content analysis was conducted to map the memories and associations coming into the minds of refugees resettled in the Netherlands. This study was carried out among 101 war-affected participants using an experimental design. The results revealed that watching the national commemoration does increase negative emotions, regardless of gender, equal among the survivors of WWII, veterans, and refugees. Furthermore, the presence of more PTS symptoms contributed to experiencing enhanced negative emotions when watching the film fragment. These findings give insight into the meaningfulness of the Dutch National Commemoration and therefore possible areas for improvement.

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