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Trauma, Personality, And Behavior: A Longitudinal Study Predicting Adverse Outcomes After Sexual Assault From Personality Prior To The Assault, Jessica L. Combs

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Exposure to sexual assault results in ongoing harms for women. After an assault, some women engage higher levels of externalizing behaviors, such as drinking problems and drug use, and others experience higher levels of internalizing dysfunction, such as clinical anxiety and clinical depression. In a longitudinal sample of 1929 freshman college women assessed across three time points, I found the following. Pre-assault negative urgency (the tendency to act rashly when distressed) interacted with assault exposure to predict increased subsequent drinking and initiation of drug use. Pre-assault trait anxiety/depression interacted with assault exposure to predict increased subsequent clinical anxiety and depression. …