The social unrest in Israel provides a unique context for revealing differences in mental indicators and state-hope according to the level of engagement in social unrest (those who oppose the law reform compared to their counterparts who support the law reform). Specifically, as hypothesized, our findings show that engagement in the social unrest in Israel (against the law reform) was associated with higher mental indicators (anxiety and social unrest). However, surprisingly, only a small and weak association was found in reference to state-hope. Concerning the mental indicators, our results support previous results which state that civil unrest is related to poor mental health or emotional distress (3, 19). This result might be explained through the notion of disruption to normal routines which accompanies social unrest. Indeed, previous findings indicated the role of normal routines as a protective buffer against mental illnesses (e.g., 20). Moreover, as the social unrest in Israel also created tension in interpersonal relations among family members, close friends, and colleagues (21), it might be that the interpersonal tension raised psychological distress, anxiety and fear of a possible civil war. In line with this notion, a recent study conducted among older people in Hong Kong following social unrest (22) revealed that participants reported experiencing changes in their relationships with their family members. Some had conflicts with family members, because of different opinions while others intentionally avoided talking about the situation with their family members in order to avoid conflict (22).
Regarding the weak association between engagement in social unrest and state-hope, a possible explanation might stem from the hope hierarchy model (23). At the bottom of the hierarchy there is the facet of hope that is most stable across time and experiences: trait hope. While trait hope involves an individual’s self-perception of his or her aptitude for general goal attainment, the next level of the hierarchy, state-hope, involves one’s momentary perception of his/her ability for goal attainment. As such, it is less stable across time and experiences than trait hope, fluctuating with and influenced by a person’s mood across circumstances and time. Thus, it might be that during the present study, state-hope played a minor role in engagement in social unrest. However, if the social unrest will continue, and additional political changes will occur in Israel, findings will be different.
With respect to the differences in mental indicators and state-hope according to level of engagement, our findings revealed an interesting picture. Specifically, anxiety level was higher among those against the law reform with both high and low engagement while the lowest level of anxiety was reported among those in favour of reform with low engagement in social unrest. Surprisingly, participants who reported non-engagement in the social unrest revealed quite similar anxiety levels as their counterparts in favour reform with high engagement in social unrest. These findings suggest that even non engagement in social unrest carries a mental toll, as social unrest can cause "snowball effects" in broad aspects of life including economic, social cohesion and sense of security. Moreover, offline street protests may continue as “online protests” on social media platforms and vice versa (24). A recent study and systematic review revealed that social media may also act as a stressor due to interactions with other online users with different ideological views (3). Thus, even individuals who are not engaged in social unrest might be exposed to the high complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity that accompanied to the social unrest which can easily trigger effects onto other aspects of life (5). As such, it is reasonable to find anxiety even among those who are not actively engaged in the social unrest.
Similar to the anxiety findings, social unrest related distress according to the engagement level revealed the same trend. Participants who oppose the law reform whether their engagement is high or low reported higher distress while those who support the law reform show the lowest distress in both groups – high and low. Once again non engaging participants reported higher levels of social unrest related distress in comparison to their counterparts who support the law reform. These findings echoed the mental toll of social unrest and its harm to mental resilience of the entire society (2).
Differences in engagement in social unrest in reference to state-hope showed a complicated picture. That is, participants who support the law reform reported the highest level of state-hope, in both levels of engagement (low and high), while the lowest level of state-hope was reported among those against the law reform with low engagement. It might be that those who support the reform revealed the highest state-hope as most of them also voted for the current government in the most recent elections. As such, they look forward to applying the reform and expect to correct years of detrimental legal injustices that now may be remedied. Additionally, results show that participants who identified as not engaged in social unrest reported higher state-hope in comparison to their counterparts who opposed the law reform with low levels of engagement. However, among participants who oppose the law reform, state-hope was highest among those with high engagement compared to those with low engagement. A possible explanation for the differences in state-hope among those who oppose the reform may be that being active in both petitions and civil demonstrations (namely high engagement) provide more meaning in life because such activism may prevent the reform from coming to fruition. Indeed, previous studies stressed positive mutual association between hope (e.g., 26) and state-hope (27) with meaning in life.
Finally, in reference to the predictors of mental indicators, our findings revealed that the main predictor that accounted for the explained variance of anxiety and social unrest related to distress was engagement in social unrest. As mentioned above, this finding supports previous studies such as Wray-Lake and colleagues (28) which found that high-cost political behaviours, such as attending a protest, predicted more depressive symptoms over time among young adults in a national U.S. sample. With regard to the demographic variables, distress related to social unrest was predicted by biological sex (female), religiosity (secular), self-rated health (reported good or excellent). That is, female sex, those who are secular and those with higher self-rated health showed social unrest related distress. As for anxiety, it was predicated by age (older), biological sex (female), economic state (higher), self-rated health (reported good or excellent). That is, older participants, female sex, those with higher economic status and those with higher self-rated health reported on anxiety. Indeed, demographic predictors were previously emphasized in relation to collective actions as variables that are associated with mental indicators such as post-traumatic disorder (PTSD) anxiety, and depression (e.g., 2,3). Specifically, Ni and colleagues (3) found in their systematic review of collective actions and mental health, that female sex and lower socioeconomic status were associated with increased risk of PTSD and anxiety symptoms while younger age correlated with anxiety symptoms. Moreover, Hou and colleagues (20) found in Hong Kong collective actions, that lower education levels and lower income levels were associated with greater odds of probable depression and suicidal ideation. Ni and colleagues (29) found that older individuals, who had less formal education, and had lower household income were overrepresented in the persistent moderate depression trajectory. In the present study, our findings show opposite results concerning the association between economic status and anxiety. This may be explained by the characteristics of the Israeli participants who are active in the present social unrest, and who belong mostly to the upper deciles of society (e.g., Hi-tech individuals, academics, physicians, lawyers, freelancers etc'). Moreover, according to the conservation of resources (COR) theory (30) resource loss is the central mechanism driving adaptation to stress. Thus, it might be that participants with higher economic status foresaw a threat of resource loss including abolishment of the rule of law and loss of places of employment.
With respect to the predictors of state-hope, results showed that demographic variables account for the higher contribution to the explained variance of state-hope. That is, older participants, those who are in a committed relationship, those with high levels of education, those with higher economic status and those with higher self-rated health demonstrated state-hope. Interestingly, the contribution of engagement in social unrest to the explained variance of state-hope was quite small. It might be that regardless of being engaged in a collective action, state-hope during social unrest events is a mostly associated with personal resources such as health, marital status, education and economic status which seem to be important especially during times of uncertainty which characterize periods of social unrest. Future replication studies with a longitudinal design are warranted to confirm the findings of this study.
Limitations
Several limitations of this study should be noted. First, this study was conducted using a cross-sectional method, thus precluding any causal relationship between the variables. Moreover, mental health indicators such as anxiety and psychological distress were not assessed before conducting the present research. Thus, caution should be applied in interpreting the data. Second, the social unrest engagement measure used in the present study might not be able to capture the vast differences in the quality and the types of civic experiences Israeli people experienced following social unrest. Future research using a more encompassing measure of engagement in social unrest would add further evidence to these research findings. Third, as with any self-report study, response bias and social desirability could influence respondents' answers and discount data validity. Last, social unrest may differ according to the contest in which such engagement occurs. Thus, future studies are warranted to explore and evaluate the generalizability of the results to other nations in which their social unrest relates to legal reform that might affect national administration.
Implications
Our results point towards the need for health-care and social work professionals to be aware of possible psychiatric sequelae during and after widespread civil unrest, not only among those who are politically active in the social unrest, but also among non-engaged participants who can also be affected as social unrest has the potential to affect the entire population. Moreover, health policy makers should plan services and short-term interventions to better protect public mental health during and following social unrest, especially among vulnerable subgroups such as those discussed in the present study.