Internal and External Mediators of Women's Rape Experiences

Abstract

Internal and external factors are examined as mediational processes and/ or coping strategies that link four aspects of women's rape experiences to the initial and lasting effects on their post-rape adjustment, attitude toward sex and intimacy, and lifestyle changes to prevent future assaults. Data are from a multiethnic community sample of 55 women who had been victims of rape or attempted rape. A measured or observed variable simultaneous path analysis model was used to test the relationships among the traumatic circumstances, mediators, and outcome variables. More self-blame, high involvement of police or other agencies, a greater number of repeated rapes per incident, and severity of abuse predicted women's negative initial and lasting attitudes toward sex and intimacy. The implications of these findings are discussed as they relate to barriers in disclosing attempted and completed incidents of rape.Incidents o f attempted and completed rape are k n o w n t o be some of the more serious forms of sexual assault (Russell, 1983). In the past 10 years, the initial and lasting effects o f rape o n women's psychological adjustment

Mental Health Services Seeking in Sexual Assault Victims

“…Although little systematic empirical work has addressed possible race differences in post-assault psychiatric outcomes and post-assault social experiences of victims, research on attitudes toward rape victims (e.g., attitude surveys, vignette studies) suggests people have more negative attitudes toward ethnic minority victims (Pollard, 1992;Williams & Holmes, 1981). African American women prefer informal sources of support (e.g., parents, friends) to the formal system (Wyatt, 1992;Wyatt, Notgrass, & Newcomb, 1990), which may reflect their perceived lack of legitimacy as sexual assault victims in our society (Wyatt, 1992) and anticipation of negative responses from formal support providers. In a media-recruited sample of 323 sexual assault survivors, Ullman and Filipas (2001b) in fact found that some types of negative social reactions were more common for some ethnic minority women than for White women disclosing sexual assaults to others, and that these negative reactions were strongly related to PTSD symptom severity.…”

Social reactions, self-blame, and problem drinking in adult sexual assault survivors.

“…For example, fewer positive responses are associated with more self-blame of survivors (Wyatt, Newcomb & Notgrass, 1991). Survivors may also already blame themselves for the assault, and negative reactions from others could strengthen that self-blame (Ullman, 1996; Ullman, Townsend, Filipas, & Starzynski, 2007).…”

Associations between child sexual abuse and negative sexual experiences and revictimization among women: Does measuring severity matter?

“…More restrictive definitions of CSA are thought to be more strongly associated with negative outcomes (DiLillo, 2001), while less restrictive definitions may not allow for the detection of such relationships (Senn et al, 2008). Although researchers have highlighted the importance of reaching a definitional consensus, an issue that has not received adequate attention is the need for any such definition of CSA to include the entire range of sexual behaviors that involve physical contact (Wyatt, Newcomb, & Notgrass, 1990; Romero, Wyatt, Loeb, Carmona, & Solis, 1999) rather than simply assessing whether or not a woman feels that she was abused. A multidimensional definition including behaviors that range in severity is theoretically important because it will allow researchers to determine if more severe CSA histories (i.e., experiences involving penetration) result in greater negative sexual outcome effects (Kallstrom-Fuqua et al, 2004).…”