Abstract
In recent past a series of tragic events have taken place in Mumbai, which eventually have caused high psychological impacts. One such eventuality in the form of Bomb blast had occurred on 11/7/2006, which had a wide social as well as psychological impact on the mankind. The study measures two components of these effects, which are cognitive and affective. The cognitive component was measured by studying flashbulb memory and affective component was measured by assessing state anxiety. The study had been divided into two phases of testing. The first phase of testing was conducted on 20th July 2006, Immediate Post Mumbai Bomb Blast (IPMBB), and the second phase was conducted from 2nd to 8th December 2006 Delayed Post Mumbai Bomb Blasts (DPMBB). For the Flash bulb memory a self-made questionnaire was prepared which consisted of 6 open ended items. The questionnaire involved an assessment of the phenomenal richness of the participant’s memory that is the items were analyzed on the basis of similarity of content in both immediate and delayed testing. The Spielberger State Anxiety questionnaire included 20 close-ended items, which evaluated the state anxiety in both the phases of testing. The sample size was 210 (27males & 184 females), between the age groups of 18 to 25 years. The data had been collected from different colleges of Mumbai (India) region. The results showed that IPMBB anxiety scores were higher than DPMBB anxiety scores. There was consistency in memory and the anxiety scores were higher in IPBMM condition for both western railway and bus than DPBMM condition. One astonishing finding was revealed that the mean anxiety of bus commuters was more than the western railway commuters in both the condition (IPBMM & DPBMM). These finding will further help to explore researches in this field.
