One night,everything disappeared: Toward a model of coping effectiveness after organizational disasters

Abstract

The explosion of TWA Flight 800 was the second-worst aviation disaster in U.S. history. This theoretical article suggests that as long as the cause of the plane crash remains a mystery, bereaved family members and friends will remain in a relatively weak position to make sense of the tragedy. The meta-construct of “coping effectiveness” is explained in its dimensionality, and then a general model of coping effectiveness is developed. Individual and situational variables are proposed as antecedents of survivors' effectiveness in coping with the loss of significant others. The individual variables are demographic, intrapsychic, and behavioral-contextual. The situational variables are suddenness, scope, and cause of organizational disaster. Story telling is the mediator between independent and dependent variables.