Browsing by Author "Bilgin, Ezgi"

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Citation Count: 14
Collective Remembering and Future Forecasting During the Covid-19 Pandemic: How the Impact of Covid-19 Affected the Themes and Phenomenology of Global and National Memories Across 15 Countries
(Springer, 2023) Oner, Sezin; Watson, Lynn Ann; Adiguzel, Zeynep; Ergen, Irem; Bilgin, Ezgi; Curci, Antonietta; Cole, Scott
The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique set of circumstances in which to investigate collective memory and future simulations of events reported during the onset of a potentially historic event. Between early April and late June 2020, we asked over 4,000 individuals from 15 countries across four continents to report on remarkable (a) national and (b) global events that (i) had happened since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported, and (ii) they expected to happen in the future. Whereas themes of infections, lockdown, and politics dominated global and national past events in most countries, themes of economy, a second wave, and lockdown dominated future events. The themes and phenomenological characteristics of the events differed based on contextual group factors. First, across all conditions, the event themes differed to a small yet significant degree depending on the severity of the pandemic and stringency of governmental response at the national level. Second, participants reported national events as less negative and more vivid than global events, and group differences in emotional valence were largest for future events. This research demonstrates that even during the early stages of the pandemic, themes relating to its onset and course were shared across many countries, thus providing preliminary evidence for the emergence of collective memories of this event as it was occurring. Current findings provide a profile of past and future collective events from the early stages of the ongoing pandemic, and factors accounting for the consistencies and differences in event representations across 15 countries are discussed.
Citation Count: 0
Healthcare Workers' Memories in the Covid-19 Pandemic: the Role of Visual Perspective and Event Centrality in Subjective Temporal Distance
(Wiley, 2024) Bilgin, Ezgi; Oner, Sezin
We investigated the factors associated with subjective temporal distance of pandemic-related events in a sample of healthcare workers. A total of 257 healthcare workers were asked to recall two COVID-19 pandemic-related events that impacted them the most at the beginning of the pandemic (April-May 2020), and rated event centrality, phenomenological characteristics, subjective temporal distance, and visual perspective (field vs. observer) for each reported event. Results showed a negative relationship between subjective temporal distance and event centrality only for memories remembered from the field perspective (field memories), but not those remembered from the observer perspective (observer memories). Furthermore, event centrality enhanced recollection of sensory and perceptual details, which, in turn, resulted in memories being felt temporally closer to people. However, only field memories, not observer memories, revealed this pattern, showing that recollective experience shaped by visual perspective mediates the relationship between event centrality and subjective temporal distance.
Citation Count: 0
The Impact of Covid-19 Trauma on Healthcare Workers: Examining the Relationship Between Stress and Growth Through the Lens of Memory
(Wiley, 2024) Oner, Sezin; Bilgin, Ezgi; Caglar, Emine Seyma
The COVID-19 pandemic constituted tremendous traumatic stress among the frontline healthcare workers. In the present study, we investigated relationships of two types of rumination, namely brooding and reflection, with traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth and the mediating role of recollective experience in these relationships. A total of 88 healthcare workers (75% female, M-age = 54.91) actively providing service to COVID-19 patients reported two memories of events that impacted them the most at the first peak of the pandemic and rated their recollective experience (i.e., phenomenological characteristics of memories). We used structural equation modelling to test whether recollective experience mediated the link of brooding and reflection with post-trauma reactions of stress and growth. The findings showed that brooding and reflection were associated with higher levels of traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth. Importantly, recollective experience mediated the relationship of rumination with traumatic stress but this differed for the type of rumination. Higher brooding was associated with greater traumatic stress and that relationship was independent of how well the memories were recollected, while for reflection, high reflection was associated with stronger recollective experience, which predicted higher traumatic stress and post-traumatic growth. The present study shows the functional dimensions of reflective rumination and presents novel findings that demonstrates the discrete mnemonic mechanisms underlying the association between brooding, reflection, and post-trauma reactions.