Sexual Revictimization: Affect Regulation as a Mediator (AREA)

Northern Illinois University, Dekalb IL

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Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Sexual assault on college campuses is a significant social problem and results in significant negative consequences to the victim and society as a whole. Women who have experienced child sexual abuse are a particularly high risk group for later adult sexual assault. Unfortunately, risk-reduction prevention programs on campus have not been particularly effective with this higher risk group. Psychological distress, increased sexual activity, and alcohol use are three such variables that have been both consistently linked to increased risk of adult sexual assault among women with a history of child sexual abuse and may provide an opportunity for developing effective preventive interventions. Among women with a history of child sexual abuse, sexual activity and alcohol use may sometimes serve the function of reducing tension and regulating negative affect. This project will employ a longitudinal design which will follow a large (approximately 1000) culturally-diverse sample of women across 12 months (with five data collection points) in order to investigate whether the experience of psychological distress, secondary to child sexual abuse, and the use of sex and alcohol to regulate negative affect increases college women's risk of experiencing prospective sexual assault. In addition, this project incorporates a novel laboratory-based behavioral forecasting analogue of likelihood to use sex to regulate negative affect. The convergence between the behavioral-forecasting analogue and current questionnaire-based measurement will be examined as well as the ability to predict likelihood of prospective adult sexual assault based on responses to the behavioral analogue. The inclusion of the behavioral-forecasting analogue is designed to elucidate the specific processes through which use of sex to regulate negative affect may increase risk of sexual assault. Understanding the function of sexual behavior and alcohol use as well as the processes through which distress and particular affect regulation strategies may interact to increase risk for adult sexual assault will provide critical information about intervention targets for risk-reduction programming efforts. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]