What Might Have Been: Near Miss Experiences and Adjustment to a Terrorist Attack

Near miss experiences—narrowly avoiding a traumatic event—are associated with distress, despite signaling good fortune. For some, near miss experiences call to mind those who, unlike oneself, were directly affected by the event, leading to “survivor guilt” or distress over one’s comparative good fortune. Survivor guilt, in turn, may function as upward counterfactual thinking about others’ negative outcomes, leading to intrusive thoughts and post-traumatic stress. We compared individuals who did or did not report a near miss with respect to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks—that is, almost being directly affected—in a national longitudinal study (N = 1,433). Near miss experiences predicted higher levels of reexperiencing symptoms and probable post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as maintenance of reexperiencing symptoms over the next 3 years. These associations were partially accounted for by survivor guilt. Near misses may be associated with distress in part because they entail reflection on negative outcomes for others.