Rape Acknowledgment and Postassault Experiences: How Acknowledgment Status Relates to Disclosure, Coping, Worldview, and Reactions Received From Others

• NCJ Number: 217006
• Journal: Violence Against Women Volume: 21 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2006 Pages: 761-778
• Author(s): Heather L. Littleton Ph.D.; Danny Axsom Ph.D.; Carmen Radecki Breitkopf Ph.D.; Abbey Berenson Ph.D.
• Date Published: December 2006
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined the link between rape victims' strength of personal recognition that what had happened to them was rape and their postrape behaviors.

Abstract

Victims who acknowledged that what had happened to them was rape had an increased likelihood of having to comfort individuals to whom they disclosed the rape rather than receiving support from them. There was no difference between acknowledged and unacknowledged victims in their receipt of blaming and stigmatizing responses from others. Such responses were rarely reported by either group. Contrary to expectation, being an acknowledged rape victim was associated with a greater belief in a just world. This may be because they received more supportive help from friends and criminal justice officials than unacknowledged victims, which intensified their belief that people cared about their victimization and wanted to remedy the wrong done to them. Both unacknowledged and acknowledged rape victims reported elevated psychological distress, damage to their world view, and engagement in extensive coping efforts compared with women who had not been raped. This suggests that the circumstance of being coerced or forced into unwanted sexual relations has adverse psychological effects on victims, regardless of whether or not the victim views the event as rape. Out of 1,253 women recruited from the psychology department of a large southeastern university in 2002 and 2003, 256 (20 percent) reported having, since the age of 14, an experience of forced, unwanted sex or sex that occurred while they were incapacitated. This was determined from the Sexual Experiences Survey. The 256 women were administered the Assault Characteristics Questionnaire, the Coping Strategies Inventory, the Social Reactions Questionnaire, the World Assumptions Scale, the PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) Symptom Scale, and the Personal Disturbance Scale. 3 tables and 73 references