Experience Of Sexual Abuse Research Articles

An examination of associations between sexual assault and health problems, depression or suicidal ideation in a large nationally representative cohort of male and female 20-30-year-olds.

A long line of research has examined whether being the victim of sexual assault is associated with negative and maladaptive outcomes, but has mainly focused on women and girls. To replicate and extend prior research by examining whether various measures of sexual assault are related to physical ill-health, depression and/or suicidal ideation, regardless of sex or age of victim. Our research questions were (1) is sexual assault related to health problems, depression and suicidal ideation and (2) do these associations differ between men and women? We analyse data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a longitudinal study of a US nationally representative sample of nearly 21,000 young people recruited for the first wave of interviews when most of the participants were between ages 12 and 18years. We used Wave 4 data, collected for participants who were in their 20s and 30s, on experience of both physical sexual assault and non-physical sexual assault and mental state, allowing for some characteristics measured in Wave 1. Allowing for missing data, sample sizes were between 6868 and 10,489 for the women and 6024 and 10,263 for the men. Statistically significant associations were revealed between the physical and non-physical measures of sexual assault and the health problems scale, the depression scale and the measure of suicidal ideation. These associations remained statistically significant even after controlling for key covariates measured at Wave 1, including exposure to delinquent peers, poverty and demographic characteristics. Sexual assault at some time and of whatever kind, although more commonly reported by women than men, is similarly associated with serious physical and mental health problems during their 20s and 30s. More sequencing detail is required for better prevention of harms.

Paths of disclosure – The process of sharing experiences of child sexual abuse

AbstractThe objective was to explore how children and young people retrospectively described disclosure of child sexual abuse in relation to their own agency. Data consists of semi‐structured interviews with 14 participants that had disclosed sexual abuse during childhood. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and analysed with thematical analysis. Participants' descriptions of their own agency in relation to disclosure of child sexual abuse, shows that both silence and disclosure can be active choices. By offering children choices trusting them to make decisions for themselves, their sense of control can be increased.

“The abuse explains why I am a certain way”: post-abuse disclosures in romantic relationships

ABSTRACT This paper presents the results of an exploratory study that investigates the goals, characteristics, and relational effects of disclosure following experiences of relational abuse and image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) in a current relationship that the survivors (n = 85) would characterize as not abusive using a multiple goals framework. Findings suggest that the overwhelming majority (93%) of survivors did disclose, to some extent, their experience of relational abuse to a current partner. Less than half of the sample (45.9%) experienced IBSA, and a smaller majority of that portion of the sample did disclose it to a partner to some extent (64%). Content of the conversations and disclosures focused on how the participant felt about the abuse, rather than the specific details, triggers, and mental health impacts, everything about the abusive experience, and a focus on partner reactions. Despite the results of the qualitative analyses characterizing these disclosures as both relationally impactful and contingent on the type and severity of relational abuse, both correlation and regression analyses did not support a significant relationship between type and severity and abuse and extent of disclosure. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Is the Risk for Sexual Revictimization Cumulative? AProspective Examination.

Sexual abuse during childhood is associated with risk for sexual assault as an adult, known as revictimization. Although multiple experiences of sexual assault in adulthood are also common, it is unclear how risk trajectories might continue to evolve in emerging adulthood, defined as ages 18-25. Clarifying risk trajectories is important to inform the development of targeted risk reduction interventions. To fill this gap, we examined cumulative risk for sexual assault in emerging adult women following multiple experiences of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and adulthood sexual assault (ASA). Women (n=447; aged 18-25years at enrollment) completed behaviorally specific assessments of unwanted sexual experiences at up to 9 time points across 3years. Logistic regression was used to predict any sexual assault during the 3-year period as a function of victimization history at baseline. A multilevel logistic regression analysis among ASA survivors was then used to determine whether each successive ASA increased risk for further victimization. Extending prior research, findings revealed that the risk for sexual assault during the 3-year study was greater for women reporting more prior experiences of CSA and ASA. Unexpectedly, each ASA increased the risk for a subsequent ASA to a lesser extent among women with more experiences of CSA. Findings suggest that the risk for sexual revictimization can be cumulative, but that risk does not increase indefinitely. Future research should investigate the points at which survivors of multiple assaults may begin to experience a decreased risk for later assaults, as well as the factors associated with change in risk status (e.g., removal from violent environments or relationships, changes in institutional policies). Such research could inform intervention targets.

Ashley Judd to Speak at APA Annual Meeting

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Annual MeetingFull AccessAshley Judd to Speak at APA Annual MeetingKatie O'ConnorKatie O'ConnorSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:25 Feb 2023https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2023.03.3.66AbstractGolden Globe winner and Emmy-nominated actress Ashley Judd has long been a devoted activist and humanitarian, championing women’s rights and public health issues. She has also written about the need to ensure privacy for families following the death of a loved one to suicide.Actor and mental health advocate Ashley Judd is the keynote speaker at the Opening Session of APA’s 2023 Annual Meeting. The Opening Session will be held Saturday, May 20, at 5:30 p.m. in the Moscone Center.Known for her roles in “De-Lovely,” “Ruby in Paradise,” and “Double Jeopardy,” actress, writer, and humanitarian Ashley Judd, M.P.A., will be a plenary speaker at the 2023 APA Annual Meeting in San Francisco.Judd has also gained worldwide acclaim as an avid advocate of human rights, with a focus on gender equality and public health. Since 2004 she has worked with numerous NGOs and traveled the world in support of public health efforts related to maternal health, child survival, HIV prevention, and malaria prevention and treatment.She currently serves as a Global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations (UN) Population Fund, the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency. She is also the chair of the Women’s Media Center Speech Project: Curbing Abuse, Expanding Freedom; a Global Ambassador for both Population Services International and Polaris Project; and a member of the leadership council of the International Center for Research on Women.Judd earned her master’s degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. In 2017, she was the recipient of the Muhammad Ali Kentucky Humanitarian Award. Her undergraduate alma mater, the University of Kentucky, established the Ashley T. Judd Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in the Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women.She was also featured on the cover of TIME Magazine’s 2017 Person of the Year issue, which honored the thousands of individuals across the world who spoke out about their experiences of sexual harassment and assault, dubbed “The Silence Breakers.”Judd has written about her family experiences with mental illness. In August 2022, she penned a guest essay in the New York Times about her family’s effort to keep police reports related to the suicide of her mother, Naomi Judd, private. Naomi Judd was a well-respected musician who dealt with mental illness for much of her life.Tennessee law allows police reports from closed investigations, including family interviews, to be made public. “Naomi lost a long battle against an unrelenting foe that in the end was too powerful to be defeated,” Ashley Judd wrote. “I could not help her. I can, however, do something about how she is remembered.”She wrote that she intends to make the invasion of privacy following an individual’s death by suicide “a personal as well as a legal cause.” She also called for a reformation of law enforcement procedures related to such cases. “Though I acknowledge the need for law enforcement to investigate a sudden violent death by suicide, there is absolutely no compelling public interest in the case of my mother to justify releasing the videos, images, and family interviews that were done in the course of that investigation.”Last August, Naomi Judd’s family filed for injunctive relief in Williamson County, Tenn., to keep the police records related to her death private. Last December, the Associated Press reported that the family had filed a notice to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit, due in part to the fact that journalists who requested the police records were not requesting photographs or body cam footage. The notice also said a Tennessee state lawmaker is introducing legislation to make death investigation records private when the death is not the result of a crime.“I hope that leaders in Washington and in state capitals will provide some basic protections for those involved in the police response to mental health emergencies,” Ashley Judd wrote in her essay, adding that her mother “should be remembered for how she lived, which was with goofy humor, glory onstage, and unfailing kindness off it—not for the private details of how she suffered when she died.” ■ ISSUES NewArchived

The long-term impact of early adverse experience on adaptive functioning: a pilot study integrating measures of mental status, nonverbal communication, and heart rate variability

ABSTRACT Background: Childhood maltreatment (CM) can disrupt the development of behavioural and physiological systems, increasing the risk of physical and psychological adverse outcomes across the lifespan. CM may cause interpersonal dysfunctions that impair social communication and lead to dysfunctional activation of the autonomic nervous system. The present exploratory study analyzed the long-term impact of CM from an integrated perspective through the simultaneous assessment of psychological symptoms, social and behavioural communication, and physiological regulation. Methods: Participants were 55 healthy university students (9 males and 46 females; mean age ± SD = 25.26 ± 2.83 years), who filled out a battery of questionnaires to assess the presence of CM (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire) and psychopathological symptoms (Symptom Check-List-90 Item Revised). Participants were then subjected to a videotaped interview for the assessment of non-verbal behaviour (Ethological Coding System for Interviews) and measurement of tonic heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of physiological adaptability to the environment. We performed Pearson's correlation analysis to evaluate the associations between non-verbal behaviour, HRV, and CM variables. Multiple regression analysis was used to evaluate the independent associations between CM variables on HRV and nonverbal behaviour. Results: We found an association between more severe CM, increased symptoms-related distress (ps < .001), less submissive behaviour (ps < .018), and decreased tonic HRV (ps < .028). As a result of multiple regression analysis, participants with a history of emotional abuse (R² = .18, p = .002) and neglect (R² = .10, p = .03) were more likely to display decreased submissive behaviour during the dyadic interview. Moreover, early experience of emotional (R² = .21, p = .005) and sexual abuse (R² = .14, p = .04) was associated with decreased tonic HRV. Conclusion: Our preliminary findings show the utility of analyzing the long-term effects of adverse early experiences at different levels of ‘adaptive functioning’ (the capabilities needed to respond effectively to environmental demands).

Healthy and Respectful Relationship Education: Differences by Disability Status and Associations With Sexual Abuse.

Education about healthy and respectful relationships (HRR) is a key component of comprehensive sexual health curricula and is supposed to be universally provided in Oregon. This study: (1) assesses the extent to which high school students with disabilities received HRR education, and (2) examines associations between HRR education and experiences of sexual abuse. Using data from the 2019 Oregon Healthy Teens survey, we conducted multivariable Poisson regression to compare 11th grade students with and without disabilities on self-reported receipt of school based HRR instruction (N=10,992), and to measure associations between HRR education and sexual abuse experiences among teens with (N=3736) and without (N=7256) disabilities. Students with disabilities were 41% more likely than students without disabilities to say they had never been taught in school about HRR (adjusted prevalence ratio 1.41, 95% confidence interval: 1.25-156). Experiences of sexual abuse victimization were more common for all students who did not receive HRR education (34.1% vs 21.6% among students with disabilities; 16.2% vs 7.5% among students without disabilities). Students with disabilities are less likely to have received school-based HRR education than their peers without disabilities. Providing inclusive HRR education may help reduce risk of sexual abuse and is essential for addressing health disparities affecting youth with disabilities.

Children's drawings as a projective tool to explore and prevent experiences of mistreatment and/or sexual abuse.

Reality shows us that situations of mistreatment and sexual abuse in childhood are still seldom visible, despite their high prevalence around the world. It is essential to detect and address them, especially among children in situations of dire risk or neglect. The purpose of this study is to determine if graphic emotional indicators are expressed in the drawings of the projective Draw-a-Person (D.A.P) test, made by children in situations of dire risk or neglect. The sample is made up of 34 children, between the ages of 5 and 11 (17 girls and 17 boys), attended by Specialised Child and Adolescent Care Services of the Barcelona Town Hall (Spain). The drawings were coded quantitatively. The results indicated that most of the drawings show a frequency of graphic emotional indicators, as well as graphic indicators common to experiences of mistreatment and/or abuse, which confirm the existence of emotional problems. However, no significant differences based on gender and age were found, except for one indicator of sexual abuse (body omitted/distorted), which is significantly more common in the boys. Results also revealed that the drawings of human figure enable the children to express their experiences of traumatic situations which are difficult to verbalize. These findings have important implications for professionals, as the use of this projective technique can help to early identification and design treatment strategies in situations of mistreatment and/or abuse in children and their families.

"Everyone Saw Me Differently Like It Was My Fault or I Wanted It": Acquaintance Stalking Victim Experiences of Sexual Assault, Sexual Harassment, and Sexual Autonomy.

Although the stalking research literature has grown over time, there is more limited research focused on acquaintance stalking victim experiences and harms. The current study used online surveys with women stalked by acquaintances who had (n = 193), and who had not (n = 144), been sexually assaulted by the stalker to examine differences in stalking course of conduct (including jealousy and control, sexual harassment) and victim harms (resource losses, social identity perceptions, sexual autonomy, sexual difficulties, and safety efficacy). Results found that many of the acquaintance stalking victims in the current study experienced all three types of sexual harassment (verbal harassment, unwanted sexual advances, sexual coercion) and had negative social identity perceptions (e.g., how they felt about themselves, how they felt about their ability to be a good partner). More women who were sexually assaulted, compared to those who were not, experienced threats, jealous and controlling behavior, severe physical violence, stalking-related fear, sexual harassment, negative social identity perceptions, and lower sexual autonomy. Multivariate analysis found that sexual assault, more unwanted sexual attention, increased sexual coercion, lower safety efficacy, and more negative social identity perceptions were associated with sexual difficulties while sexual assault, higher safety efficacy, fewer resource losses, and fewer negative social identity perceptions were associated with increased sexual autonomy. Sexual assault, verbal sexual harassment, and resource losses were associated with more negative social identity perceptions. Understanding the full scope of stalking victimization and the negative impacts can inform the recovery journey and safety planning interventions.

How aware are college students of sexual harassment and assault in Turkey?

ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to examine college students’ views on sexual harassment and assault. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 135 students (51.1% of women and 48.9% of men) from a state university in Turkey. Participants ages ranged from 18 to 27 (M = 21.69 years, SD = 2.49). Findings obtained from the content analysis show that the participants were not able to define sexual harassment and assault accurately and that their definitions included stereotypes regarding sexual harassment and assault. Other findings of the study show that participants had low awareness of online sexual harassment and did not have enough information about appropriate reporting avenues. According to these findings, there is a need for comprehensive prevention and education initiatives to raise awareness of this issue among Turkish college students. Practice impact statement Emerging adulthood (ages 18–24) is a particularly risky time for perpetration of sexual violence. This study draws attention to need for awareness raising among Turkish college students of the nature and risks for sexual violence. It is also important for professionals working with college students and university administrators to have in-depth information on students’ experiences of sexual assault, and preferred reporting avenues, to ensure there are tailored interventions and responses to support victims.

Double-Edged Network Effects on Disclosing Traumatic Experiences Among Korean "Comfort Women".

This study examines the effects of social networks on the disclosure of stigmatizing and traumatic sexual assault experiences. We analyzed publicly archived oral histories of Korean "comfort women" from World War II, employing an innovative method combining word embedding analysis, word frequency comparison, and grounded theory. By extracting their significant social relationships from narrated survivor stories, we parsed two distinctive disclosure patterns according to timing of disclosure: early disclosers and late disclosers. The latter were more socially embedded than the former, indicating the constraining aspect of social networks, in which the size of social networks was positively associated with delayed disclosure. Qualitative findings further elaborated that social networks have double-edged effects. Survivors' familial networks functioned as both social constraints and social support for public disclosure. Yet, the late disclosers tend to exploit it more as constraints for the fear of transgenerational transmission of social scorn and stigma. The findings contribute to enhancing a culturally relevant understanding of trauma and the repercussions of human trafficking.

“Every patriarch has his prostitute”: the prostituted woman in Virginia Woolf’s writings

ABSTRACT The marginalized figure of the prostituted woman haunts Virginia Woolf's writings throughout her career. Lola Mendoza in The Voyage Out, Florinda and Laurette in Jacob's Room, Nell and her friends in Orlando, and the musings on prostitution in Three Guineas all indicate that, despite her status as the privileged daughter of an educated gentleman, Woolf empathized with women who were ostracized by society because they sold their bodies for money. That profound empathy stems from Woolf's childhood experiences of sexual abuse at the hands of her half-brothers. Like many survivors of childhood sexual abuse, Woolf was given presents by her abuser to reward her for her cooperation and to ensure her silence. That particular tactic frequently makes the abused child feel complicit in her own abuse. Consequently, Woolf identified with prostitutes, as Leonard's nickname for her, “Aspasia,” suggests. In Three Guineas, Woolf writes from her position as a prostituted woman (or girl, really) while resisting its abjection. Unlike her fellow modernists, Woolf directs our sympathy toward society's traditional scapegoat and documents that the prostitution of women is the inevitable result of the systematic oppression of women at every level of society.

Relentless, aggressive, and pervasive: Exploring gender minimization and sexual abuse experienced by women ex-military veterans.

Contextually embedded and sanctioned gender minimization and sexual abuse toward female personnel within the military appears widespread. Left unabated, mental health complications of female personnel will challenge care responsibilities for military organizations. Interview data from six ex-military women that sought positive and negative interpretations of gender minimization and sexual abuse while in the military was analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Analysis revealed two superordinate themes: (a) Immature Culture, and (b) Ejection and Growth. These overarched four subordinate themes that explored fostered patriarchy and male privilege in the military. Participants expressed experiencing relentless belittling that eroded early adolescent goals of success and aborted their ability to thrive psychologically. By association, interpersonal violence compounded by organizational complicity triggered internalized shame and narcissistic defenses. Discharging from the military is remembered as a painful, isolated struggle for these participants as they sought to make sense of their fragmented identities as women. With time, all participants acknowledged pride in skills achieved during military life, and the strength to speak out against embedded organizational abuse. A persistent ruminative struggle to make sense of complex systemic biases against women that allowed organizational abuse to flourish facilitated posttraumatic growth. For these participants, personal experiences of gender minimization and sexual abuse in the military incubated a betrayal of hope and moral safety. As women, they felt violated at an organizational level seemingly orchestrated by male privilege and patriarchy. Clinical priorities include reparative validation and holistic trauma support underpinned by trauma and posttraumatic growth frameworks. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Old crimes reported in new bottles: the disclosure of child sexual abuse on Twitter through the case #MeTooInceste

Movements such as #MeToo have shown how an online trend can become the vehicle for collectively sharing personal experiences of sexual victimisation that often remains unreported to the criminal justice system. These social media trends offer new opportunities to social scientists who investigate complex phenomena that, despite existing since time immemorial, are still taboo and difficult to access. They also bring technical difficulties, as the challenge to identify reports of victimisation, and new questions about the characteristic of the events, the role that victimisation testimonies play and the capacity to detect them by analysing their characteristics. To address these issues, we collected 91,501 tweets under the hashtag #MeTooInceste, posted from the 20 to 27 January 2021. A model was fitted using Latent Dirichlet Allocation that detected 1688 tweets disclosing experiences of child sexual abuse, with an accuracy of 91.3% [± 3%] and a recall of 93.1% [± 5%]. We performed Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations on the tweets identified as disclosures of victimisation and found that long tweets posted by users with small accounts, without URL or picture, were more likely to be related to disclosure of child sexual abuse. We discuss the possibilities of these trends and techniques offer for research and practice.

Personal narratives, public risk: using Foucault’s ‘confessional’ to examine adult retrospective disclosures of childhood abuse

Disclosure of childhood sexual abuse is a process that is often laden with boundary testing, decision-making and, at times, risk. Disclosures tend to be delayed, often into adulthood and later life, with disclosures to authorities remaining relatively low. In the Republic of Ireland adults who disclose experiences of childhood sexual abuse are directed towards child protection services due to an interplay between jurisprudence, child protection policy design, and mandatory reporting obligations, requiring social work practitioners to balance the social and the legal. This article compares Foucault’s concept of the confessional to current social work practices of engaging with adult victims and survivors of abuse. It is argued that thinking about these interactions as a confessional-like system highlights a process of knowledge creation that is taking place when a personal narrative of abuse is shared, willingly or via mandated reporting, with a child protection agency under the auspices of a modern state. This ‘confessional-lens’ helps us identify a tipping of the balance in this area of social work practice, away from provision of care and person-centredness, across a boundary, to legalistic practice. Narratives of childhood abuse are transformed into knowledge deemed necessary to assess current risk to children. A process that places the adult on the periphery, leading to a potential for harm and re-traumatisation.

Investigating the Relationship Between Childhood Sexual Abuse, Marital Satisfaction and Sexual Performance in Iranian Married Women

Objective: The present study defines the experiences of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and aims to explain its relationship with satisfaction with married life and sexual performance in Iranian married women. Methods: The statistical population included all married women in Tehran Province, Iran, in 2021 in the age range of 18 to 50 years. According to the study population, 200 people were selected as the sample using the available sampling method and answered the female sexual function index, developed by Rosen et al. (2000), the marital satisfaction questionnaire by Enrich (1989), and the unwanted childhood sexual experiences questionnaire by Stevenson (1998). In the statistical method, the research hypotheses were tested according to the normally distributed research variables, using the Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate regression. Results: The results of the Pearson correlation showed a negative and significant relationship between the experience of CSA and satisfaction with married life, along with the two components of sexual pain and sexual desire in the variable of sexual performance (P&lt;0.01). In addition, the multivariate regression results showed that CSA experiences could predict marital life satisfaction. However, only the component of maximum contact in the CSA variable predicted the components of sexual pain and sexual desire in the sexual performance variable (P&lt;0.01). Conclusion: The experience of CSA in Iranian married women can affect their marital relationship and sexual performance. Accordingly, efforts should be made to identify these people and consider appropriate psychological measures for their recovery because, in Iranian culture, most people hide this incident out of social shame and fear of being dishonored.

Analyzing the concept of sexual self-care in preschool children: A qualitative study.

Child sexual abuse is a global concern for families and societies. Therefore, child protection from sexual harassment is of particular importance. The present study aimed to investigate the concept of sexual self-care in children. The present research is a qualitative study conducted with a content analysis approach. The study participants include 39 child sex education specialists, parents of children aged 4-7 years, adolescents who were sexually abused in childhood, and those with no experience of sexual abuse in childhood. The participants were selected through purposive sampling method. Different people's interpretations of the concept of sexual self-care in children were explored using semi-structured and face-to-face interviews, which continued until the saturation of concepts. Data were analyzed using the Graneheim and Lundman method. Guba and Lincoln's criteria were used to strengthen the validity and transferability of the data. Sexual self-care in children was identified from participants' viewpoints in the study. This self-care includes three main components and six subcomponents of (1) knowledge about privacy, risk situation, and trustworthy people, (2) attitude and perception of risk, and (3) behavioral skills in self-protection (i.e., post-injury reaction). Further injuries can be prevented by improving the level of awareness, forming the right attitude, and strengthening children's behavioral skills toward sexual self-care. Such issues, which are representatives of privacy, risk situations, and self-protection ability, can improve children's sexual self-care skills.

Adverse Childhood Experiences in Mexico: Prevalence and Association with Sociodemographic Variables and Health Status.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) refer to a semantic field of negative childhood events that, in conjunction with insufficient personal, family, or contextual coping resources, have the potential of becoming traumatic. To assess the prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and their association with sociodemographic variables and physical and mental illnesses in a Mexican sample. A cross-sectional design was used. The sample included 917 Mexican adults who responded to the Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ). Most of the participants were female (79.3%) with an average age of 37 years, a monthly income between 500 and 2,500 USD (59.2%), had completed university education (45.6%) and were married or in a common-law marriage (53.1%). Data was collected through Google Forms, and the link to the form was shared through electronic social networks. A total of 48.3% of the participants presented seven to nine types of ACEs. Among their responses, the most prevalent categories were emotional neglect (95.1%), family violence (83.3%), and emotional abuse (78.6%). A significant association was found between the number of ACEs and the mental illness diagnosis (x2(20) = 15.16; p<001). Women were found to report more experiences of sexual abuse (z = -6.62, p<. 001), whereas men reported more experiences of community violence (z= -4.27, p < .001) and collective violence (z = -3.94, p<.001). The prevalence of ACEs in the Mexican population is high. However, men and women reported differences in certain types of ACEs. It was found that people with a diagnosis and family history of mental illnesses presented a higher number of ACE categories.

ChildhoodTraumatic Experience, Attachment Quality, and Parenting Styleas Predicting Factors of Psychopathic Behaviour

The objective of this study was to investigate how childhoodtraumatic experiences, attachment qualities with parents and peers and perceived parenting style contribute to psychopathic behaviours among inmates. A sizeof 270 institutionalised participantsresponded to a questionnaire comprising items from the Levenson’s Self Report Psychopathy (LSRP, α = .83), Early Trauma Inventory Self-Report Short Form (Cronbach’s α = .89), Parenting Style Inventory-II (Cronbach’s α = .75),and Inventory of Parent and Peers Attachments (Cronbach’s α = .83).The results showed that early childhood experiences of sexual abuse showed significant prediction of psychopathy[β =.24, t = 2.63, p &lt;.05].Alienation in attachment quality significantlypredicted psychopathy[β = -.19, t = 3.01, p &lt; .01]. Similarly, parenting style autonomy-grantingsignificantly predicted psychopathy [β = .25, t = 3.64, p &lt; .01]. The study concludes that the experience of childhood trauma, the quality of attachment and parenting style could have implication for psychopathic behaviour pattern

SEXUAL AND MARITAL SATISFACTION IN OLDER ADULTHOOD: EFFECTS OF CHILDHOOD AND ADULTHOOD VIOLENCE EXPOSURE

Abstract Objectives Guided by Finkelhor and Browne’s traumagenic dynamics model, the current study examines: 1) the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on older adults’ sexual and marital satisfaction, 2) the mediating role of intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization in the association between childhood adversities and sexual and marital satisfaction, and 3) whether gender moderates the mediational association. Research Design and Methods Using the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we analyzed data from 4,239 older adults between the 2004/2005 (Wave 1, Mean age = 65 years) and 2011 (Wave 2, Mean age = 72 years) data collections. The structural modeling approach was employed where the independent variables were CSA and ACEs, the dependent variables were sexual and marital satisfaction in Wave 2, and the mediators were IPV victimization and sexual and marital satisfaction in Wave 1. Results Both CSA and ACEs were associated with lower levels of sexual satisfaction and marital satisfaction in late adulthood. IPV victimization mediated the association between ACEs and marital satisfaction. The hypothesized moderated mediation by gender was not supported. Discussion and Implications: Using a population-based sample, this is one of the first studies demonstrating that distal life events such as CSA and ACEs can undermine older adults’ sexual and marital health, and revictimization in adulthood may serve as a mechanism for the association. Timely intervention is needed to prevent persistent negative effects of childhood violence.