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
Recommended Citation
Nelson, Megan E., "Predicting Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among Stalking Victims" (2018). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 6849.
https://ecommons.udayton.edu/graduate_theses/6849
