Collective resilience in the disaster recovery period: Emergent social identity and observed social support are associated with collective efficacy, wellbeing, and the provision of social support

Social support and an emerging sense of community are common in flooding, but post-flood group dynamics have not been fully addressed. In the context of a flooded community, we explore how social identification with one’s community emerges and affects wellbeing, collective efficacy, and social support. Results from a quantitative survey show that social identification was positively associated with common fate, collective efficacy, and wellbeing through residents’ expectations of support and shared goals. Importantly, social identification and disaster exposure interacted: For flooded residents, observing support was associated with providing support regardless of levels of social identification. For unaffected residents there was no association between observed and provided support, regardless of levels of social identification. However, for indirectly affected residents observing support was associated to providing support but only when they highly identified with the community. We argue that structural factors should also be considered when exploring the effects of group membership.

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