Emotionally Based Strategic Communications and Societal Stress-Related Disorders

• DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2012.0410
• Publication Date: 2012-10-18T14:35:37Z
• Authors: Krešimir Ćosić; Armano Srbljinović; Siniša Popović; Brenda K. Wiederhold; Mark D. Wiederhold
• Keywords: Stress Disorders, Traumatic; Communication; Emotions; Models, Psychological; Resilience, Psychological; Social Environment; dimensional model of emotions; discrete emotions; dominant emotional maps; group emotions; social psychology; strategic communications; stress-related disorders; valence and arousal; 3. Good health; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Humans; Social Behavior

This article discusses the potential of emotionally based strategic communications (EBSCs) as an extension of traditional strategic communications in prevention of societal stress-related disorders. The concept of EBSCs takes into consideration dominant emotional maps of a specific sociocultural environment in which communications take place. EBSCs may have a significant potential to transform mainly negative-dominant emotional maps of targeted social groups into more positive ones, as a precondition of building a more resilient and stress-resistant social environment. A better understanding of dominant emotional maps and their conditioning may facilitate restoration of more positive emotional maps by touching the right emotions of significant parts of the targeted social groups in the right way. Dominant emotional maps of societies afflicted by economic downturns, natural disasters, conflicts etc., are typically characterized by negatively valenced emotions. Persistent negatively valenced group-based dominant emotions may be used as a quantitative statistical measure of potential stress-related disorders and post-traumatic stress disorders among respected group members. The toxic power of extreme negative emotions, attitudes, actions, and behavior might be reduced by EBSCs as a communication method for transforming negative-dominant emotional maps into more positive ones. EBSCs are conceptualized as the positively valenced stimulation of a negatively emotionally affected group by an appropriate communication strategy to minimize dominant-negative emotional maps and behavior of the targeted group.