Relevance of terrorism for Italian students not directly exposed to it: The affective impact of the 2015 Paris and the 2016 Brussels attacks

Notwithstanding the dramatically increasing frequency of acts of terrorism in Europe and the extent of their media coverage, there is lack of knowledge on people’s affective reactions and associated emotion regulation strategies. We explored the affective impact on two cohorts of Italian students (n = 193) possibly exposed vicariously through the mass media to the 2015 Paris or the 2016 Brussels terrorist attacks, respectively. We accessed data from three online questionnaires: one on emotion regulation administered before each attack; one on daily affect administered just before and after each attack; and one on causes of weekly affect and life satisfaction administered at the end of the week in which each attack occurred. The attacks were perceived as relevant for influencing negative affect for 22% of the students. For them, suppression–less frequently used than reappraisal–was associated with an improvement of affect after each attack, but negatively related to life satisfaction concerning the week in which the attacks occurred. Our data showed that the recent terrorist attacks occurring in Europe had an affective impact on people at some distance who were vicariously exposed, and point to the protective role of emotion regulation as a key resource for individuals’ wellbeing.