Social Identity and Traumatic Stress in the Context of an Earthquake and a Pandemic: Understanding the Roles of Shared and Isolating Social Experiences

A social identity explanation is used to offer insight into who is and who is not affected by trauma, using two examples from data collected after an earthquake in Nepal in 2015 and during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Traumatic experience is not equally distributed across any population, and the likelihood of experiencing an extreme event is affected by group membership and particularly the status of different groups. Attributes of groups and the resources that they offer to members can be important in driving risk and resilience. The chapter offers evidence that trauma and social identities are inherently linked, and that changes in our social identity resources have substantial consequences for health and wellbeing. Derived from this approach, we can recognise those people who are likely to have short-term versus long-term impacts as a consequence of traumatic experiences. Finally, the chapter discusses how this work can inform policy and practice.