Predicting Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Stalking Victims

Date of Award

2018

Degree Name

M.A. in Clinical Psychology

Department

Department of Psychology

Advisor/Chair

Advisor: Catherine Lutz-Zois

Abstract

The current study aimed to understand mediators and moderators of the relationship between stalking victimization and PTSD symptomology. Using the reformulated learned helplessness theory as a model (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Reiland, Lauterbach, Harrington, & Palmieri, 2014), I predicted that participants who experienced stalking would be likely to attribute the cause of their specific stalking experience to internal, global, and stable attributions beyond their attributional styles. I also predicted that these attributions, as well as characterological self-blame, would be more likely to lead to PTSD symptomology in women, or people with feminine sex-role identities who had longer stalking experiences. While this study did not find a significant relationship between stalking victimization and PTSD, implications for the observed association between both sex-role identity and the length of the stalking episode and stalking victimization are discussed.

Keywords

Clinical Psychology, Stalking, victimization, helplessness, attributional style, stalking-specific attributions, characterological self-blame, length of stalking episode, stalking frequency, and stalking distress

Rights Statement

Copyright © 2018, author

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