is a common form of trauma experienced by women on college campuses, with research indicating that roughly 1 in 5 females will experience sexual assault while in college (Krebs, Lindquist, Warner, Fisher, & Martin, 2009). Further, sexual assault often leaves a substantial, negative impact on victim's mental health, with an extensive body of literature highlighting the high prevalence of PTSD and depression among sexual assault victims. For example, half of female undergraduate rape survivors will meet the criteria to be diagnosed with PTSD at some point in their lifetime. (Kilpatrick, Resnick, Ruggiero, Conoscenti, & Mccauley, 2012).Further, the National Comorbidity Survey (N=5,877) found that nearly half of women exposed to sexual assault met criteria for PTSD, with rape being the most common cause of PTSD in women . Further, a review on prevalence of mental health disorders among sexual assault victims indicated that between 17%-65% of sexual assault victims developed PTSD while 13%-51% met diagnostic criteria for depression (Campbell, Dworkin, & Cabral, 2009). Further, sexual assault victims are not only more vulnerable to psychological distress when compared to non-trauma victims, but they are also more vulnerable to distress compared to victims of other types of trauma (Breslau, Davis, & Andreski, 1991;Zinzow et al., 2010Zinzow et al., , 2012. Given the high prevalence of PTSD and depression, it is important to investigate factors that may confer risk of these negative outcomes among women who experienced rape. Two such factors may be blame and shame. Therefore, this study seeks to evaluate the association between blame (victimblaming social reactions to disclosure of rape and self-blame) and psychological distress, as explained by shame.Researchers have increasingly adopted an ecological lens when investigating factors leading to distress among sexual assault victims (see Campbell et al., 2009 for a review). An ecological approach emphasizes that our understanding of sexual assault's impact is significantly limited if we view sexual assault as an isolated event (Wasco, 2003). Rather, the subjective experiences of sexual assault often extend beyond the act of assault itself. Sexual assault and recovery are embedded in a multilevel social context that shapes how victims may judge themselves and are evaluated by others. In this social context, sexual assault is and remains a highly stigmatized experience (Kennedy &