Automatic Relationship-Harm Associations and Interpersonal Trauma Involving Close Others

Abstract

Women exposed to violence early in life are at risk of revictimization. The interpersonal schema hypothesis of revictimization proposes that revictimized women will be more likely to hold negative expectations about intimate relationships, including expectations that relationships involve harm, relative to singly or nonvictimized women. To test the interpersonal schema hypothesis, we used the implicit lexical decision task to examine automatic associations between relationship and harm concepts among college women who reported histories of no, single, or multiple types of interpersonal trauma involving close others (e.g., family member, partner). Women exposed to multiple types of interpersonal trauma involving close others showed stronger relationship-harm associations than singly or nonexposed women. Relationship-harm associations predicted the number of interpersonal trauma types (e.g., sexual, physical trauma) involving close others reported by participants, but were unrelated to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Findings suggest that relational schemata held by women exposed to multiple types of interpersonal trauma involving close others include concepts of harm, which may have implications for how multiply victimized women behave in and think about intimate relationships.

A Dyadic Analysis of the Influence of Trauma Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Severity on Intimate Partner Aggression

“…In contrast, the effects of veterans' and spouses' trauma histories on veterans engaging in IP psychological aggression were independent of PTSD. The direct association between trauma and psychological aggression was a more novel finding; it is likely that psychosocial processes not evaluated in this study, but which are generally important for relationship functioning (e.g., attachment, relationship schemas, affect regulation, and the ability to trust and relate to others; Cloitre et al, 2010;DePrince, Combs, & Shanahan, 2009;Ehlers & Clark, 2000) may underlie this association between trauma and IP psychological aggression.…”

“…Finally, results which suggested that the trauma history of the spouse was associated with subsequent acts of IP psychological aggression by the veteran and that veteran exposure to childhood sexual assault was positively associated with IP psychological aggression by the nonveteran spouse suggest the need to educate couples about the phenomenon of revictimization (e.g., Noll, Horowitz, Bonanno, Trickett, & Putnam, ). Research suggests that individuals who have experienced early trauma may (a) expect that harm is a normal part of relationships (DePrince et al., ), (b) engage in risky behaviors (West, Williams, & Siegel ), or (c) may not adequately attend to cues in the environment that signal that a situation is dangerous (Soler‐Baillo, Marx, & Sloan, ). Although these data do not address the role of these processes in IP aggression, such mechanisms offer possible points of intervention to reduce IP aggression and are deserving of further study.…”

Emotion dysregulation and risky sexual behavior in revictimization

“…Findings suggest that women with poor emotion regulation skills may engage in risky sexual behavior, particularly with lesser known partners, in efforts to manage negative affect, and that child maltreatment is indi- rectly linked with risky sex with a stranger via emotion dysregulation. Other mechanisms within the interpersonal domain may better explain the association between risky sexual behavior and revictimization within an ongoing intimate relationship, including interpersonal schemas (DePrince, Combs, & Shanahan, 2009), interpersonal functioning (Rich et al, 2005), or impaired assertiveness (Testa, Van Zile-Tamsen & Livingston, 2007).…”

Sexual Risk‐Taking Among Recently Emancipated Female Foster Youth: Sexual Trauma and Failed Family Reunification Experiences

“…Experiences of child maltreatment, and particularly sexual abuse, are associated with insecure attachment patterns that may contribute to distrustful and dependent relationships with romantic partners, which, in turn, render youth more likely to engage in multiple, brief sexual relationships and unsafe sexual behaviors (Briere, ; Cicchetti & Toth, ; Fraley & Shaver, ; Senn & Carey, ). Some researchers suggest that disproportionately strong relations between child sexual abuse and later sexual risk‐taking may reflect the dual contributions of attachment disruptions and mental health problems that compromise healthy decision‐making during sexual encounters (DePrince, Combs, & Shanahan, ; Finkelhor & Browne, ; Senn & Carey, ). Extending these works to examine sexual risk‐taking among newly emancipated female foster youth, the first aim of this study was to evaluate associations of child neglect, child physical abuse, and child sexual abuse with sexual risk‐taking, with the expectation that relations with child sexual abuse would be especially robust.…”

“…At the same time, however, dissociation may interfere with healthy decision making and experiential processing in later development (Carlson, Yates, & Sroufe, ). Research has shown that dissociative symptoms are elevated among individuals with a history of child maltreatment (DePrince et al., ), particularly sexual abuse (Putnam, ), or caregiver disruption (Liotti, ). Moreover, some research supports the role of dissociation in relations between these childhood adversities and health risk behaviors, including HIV risk behaviors (e.g., using needles, unsafe sexual practices; Miller, ), nonsuicidal self‐injury (Yates, Carlson, & Egeland, ), and suicide (Kisiel & Lyons, ).…”