Lay concepts of trauma in the UK: content and predictors

Objective: Readiness among laypeople to classify ordinary adversities as “trauma” may activate cognitive, social, and behavioral patterns that either promote proactive help-seeking or exacerbate mental health difficulties. Clinical understandings of trauma have expanded across recent decades to encompass a wide range of aversive experiences. While some have suggested lay understandings of trauma have expanded in parallel, minimal data directly reveal how the lay public conceptualize trauma. This study sought to establish the range of adversities that laypeople classify as traumatic. Method: In an online survey, U.K. participants (N = 214) rated the traumatic nature of 80 adversities, half of which represented prototypical precursors of trauma (e.g., physical assault and sexual abuse), and half of which involved other adversities, not typically invoked in clinical definitions of trauma. Results: Prototypical precursors were judged significantly more traumatic than nonprototypical adversities, but many nonprototypical adversities were also deemed likely to cause trauma (e.g., facial disfigurement or being falsely accused of a crime). Individual variation in the propensity to interpret adversities as traumatic was significantly predicted by participants’ age, ethnicity, and political orientation. Conclusions: This original evidence regarding the content and predictors of lay conceptions of trauma is relevant for sensitive delivery of clinical interventions, tailoring of other supports for populations experiencing adversity, and anticipating social responses to victims of specific adversities.