Paper Title
Study of Metropolitan Civil Resilience: One Monthsafter The 2011 East Japan Earthquake
Abstract
After the 1990s, economic growth in Japan continued to increase, and Japanese society hurriedly becamea completely different and stressful society more than ever before. Japan enforced chainsaw tactics, such as massive lay-offs, early retirement, and control over new appointments for cost reduction, because the �bubble� economy collapsed in 1991. In addition, the great East Japan earthquake, an unprecedented natural disaster, happened, along with the European debt crisis. Now, half of the people inJapan are under severe stress. Such situations can easily worsen mental health. The purpose of this study is to conduct preliminary research on resilience. Referring to the will to fight against adverse circumstances, the concepthas attracted attention, lately. The subject and the research method was discussed at the citizen�s lecture on stress management in April 7, 2011, and an intervention was carried out in the form of a seminar on the same afternoon. Candidates were participating in the structured association technique (SAT) resilience program (17 persons) and a gymnastics program (9 persons). Residents of a metropolitan area attended the lecture meeting, which included workers and families. Participating candidates filled in the sheet beforeparticipating in the intervention, immediately after the intervention, and one month later. SIgA was extracted from the saliva of the test subjects before and immediately after the intervention. A comparison was carried out between the SAT group and the gymnastics group one month later. There was a significant difference in the SIgAbetween- subjectsprior to the intervention and immediately thereafter. The SAT group was required tofocus on a good image as a self-image scenario, based on the assumption that changing to untainted self-reward oriented pursuit would be more effective in fostering resilience, compared to external and other-reward oriented pursuit.
Keywords� resilience, self-image, SAT(Structured Association Technique), Exercise Program, Intervention Research.