ABSTRACT
This study assessed the degree to which Holocaust survivors have dealt successfully with the eight psychosocial crises thought by Erikson (1959) to mark important stages in life-span development. In Study 1, 50 autobiographical interviews of survivors videotaped 30-50 years after the war were subjected to thematic content analysis. Relevant passages were coded as representing either a favorable or an unfavorable outcome as defined by Erikson. Survivors described significantly more favorable than unfavorable outcomes for seven of the crises; the exception was Trust vs. Mistrust. In Study 2, audiotaped Holocaust survivor interviews conducted in 1946 were scored in the same way and compared with the results of Study 1. There were several significant differences as well as similarities between the two data sets, the later interviews mostly showing changes in the positive direction.
Subject(s)
Holocaust , Personality , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/psychology , Survivors/psychology , Female , Humans , Interviews as Topic , Jews , Life Change Events , Male , Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic/etiologyABSTRACT
Thematic content analysis for 11 seminal values was applied to the published memoirs of 4 early U.S. astronauts (John Glenn, Gordon Cooper, "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins). Premission values did not show the expected conventional pattern; some regularities were observed across the pre-, during-, and postflight profiles. Aldrin's post-NASA adjustment problems were possibly related to his highly (and uniquely) skewed focus on Achievement to the exclusion of other values. Because of the small and unrepresentative sample of both subjects and measures, this paper is best considered an illustration of the potential usefulness of thematic content analysis in studying the history of human spaceflight and the understanding of astronauts' lives.
