The Sexual Self-Perceptions of Young Women Experiencing Abuse in Dating Relationships

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Abuse

We administered the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS-2; Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996), which represents a commonly used measure to assess the presence or absence of abuse within an intimate relationship. Of particular interest were responses to the items that assessed the tactics women's partners used to resolve conflicts within the past month. The tactics that involved physical assault, psychological aggression, and sexual coercion were used to establish the presence or absence of abuse targeted at women in their intimate relationships. Responses were made on a 6-point scale that ranged from 0 (never) to 5 (more than 10 times in the past month). Internal consistencies for the physical assault (Cronbach's [alpha] = .89) and psychological aggression (Cronbach's [alpha] = .86) subscales were high. Although the inter-item consistency for sexual coercion was lower (Cronbach's [alpha] = .54), similar consistency has been found in other samples (e.g., Kuffel & Katz, 2002). Because reports for the past month (rather than the past year) were solicited, responses of even one occurrence of physical assault or sexual coercion were considered to constitute abuse. Within the past month, 10.2% (n = 11) of the women reported having experienced physical assault, whereas 17.6% (n = 19) reported having experienced sexual coercion from their current partners. The most common form of abuse was psychological aggression; 25.9% (n = 28) of the women scored 3 or greater (i.e., at least three to five instances within the past month). Though this cutoff score of 3 or greater for defining psychological abuse is necessarily arbitrary, we viewed it as a relatively conservative criterion that maximized the likelihood that aggressive acts (e.g., my partner shouted at me) were considered in the context of broader conflict (Kuffel & Katz, 2002). Moreover, the mean number of events that constituted psychological aggression reported by women whom we categorized as being in a psychologically abusive relationship (M = 8.27, SD = 5.69) was not considerably different from the number of such events reported by women who self-defined their relationships as psychologically abusive in Pipes and LeBov-Keeler's (1997) study (however, due to differences in scaling, a direct comparison of the means could not be made). In many instances, the women who experienced physical abuse also reported psychological abuse, r = .69, p < .001. Thus, women in the present study were categorized as being in an abusive relationship if they indicated any instances of physical assault, or if they scored 3 or greater on the psychological aggressiveness subscale. On the basis of these criteria, 31 (28.7%) of the women were identified as currently involved in an abusive relationship, whereas 77 women were not in an abusive relationship. Sexual coercion also tended to co-occur with the other forms of abuse: sexual and psychological subscales, r = .44, p < .01; sexual and physical abuse, r = .27, p < .01. However, given the specific interest in sexual self-perceptions, the effects of the presence or absence of such coercion were examined separately.

Self-Esteem

The State Self-Esteem Scale (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991) is a 20-item measure that is sensitive to changes across time and situations. Responses are made on a 5-point rating scale that ranges from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely true of me) to indicate the extent to which women believed that each statement applied to them at that moment. Mean responses were calculated, such that higher scores represent greater self-esteem (Cronbach's [alpha] = .91)

Depression

The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) is a commonly used self-report measure of subclinical depressive symptomatology. We used the 13-item version (Beck & Beck, 1972) due to its brevity and demonstrated validity. This 13-item inventory uses a 4-point scale, such that responses of 0 indicate a lack of symptomatology and responses of 3 indicate high depressive symptomatology. Responses were summed, and scores could range from 0 to 39.

Trauma History

The Traumatic Life Events Questionnaire (Kubany et al., 2000) is a 23-item self-report questionnaire that assesses exposure to a broad spectrum of potentially traumatic events. Events are described in behaviorally descriptive terms (consistent with the DSM-IV stressor criterion A1). Participants report the frequency with which each event occurred by indicating the number of incidences on a 7-point scale from 0 (never) to 6 (more than five times). When events are endorsed, respondents indicate whether they experienced intense fear, helplessness, or horror (the PTSD stressor criterion A2 in the DSM-IV). Trauma history is defined in relation to four discrete categories: shock event (e.g., car accident), death of a loved one, trauma to other (e.g., witnessing assault), and assault. Scores can be determined by summing the frequencies associated with each traumatic event that participants also reported as causing fear, help-lessness, and/or horror (Breslau, Chilcoat, Kessler, & Davis, 1999). Of particular interest in the present study were events involving past assault, which included childhood physical or sexual abuse, physical assault, spousal assault, rape, being stalked, or having one's life threatened.

RESULTS

To test whether abuse was associated with women's negative or positive sexual self-perceptions, 3 (time of measurement) X 2 (abused or not) mixed measures analyses of covariance were conducted, with length of time women had been in their current relationships as the covariate. Abuse was either defined by the presence or absence of physical/psychological abuse or by the presence or absence of sexual coercion.

The length of time women had been in their relationships represented a significant covariate in relation to negative sexual self-perceptions, F(1, 63) = 6.05, p < .05, [[eta].sup.2] = .088, in that, on the whole, the longer women were in their current relationships, the lower their negative sexual self-perceptions. A significant main effect for physical/psychological abuse was also evident, F(1, 63) = 11.63, p < .001, [[eta].sup.2] = .156, such that experiencing abuse was associated with more negative sexual self-perceptions (see Table II). Neither time of measurement, F(2, 126) = 1.81, ns, [[eta].sup.2] = .036, nor the interaction between time and physical/psychological abuse, F < 1, was significant.

When the effects of the presence or absence of sexual coercion on negative sexual self-perceptions were examined, there was a significant main effect for coercion, F(1, 63) = 11.56, p < .001, [[eta].sup.2] = .155, as well as a significant interaction between coercion and time of measure, F(2, 126) = 10.36, p < .001, [[eta].sup.2] = .141. Simple effects analyses indicated that changes of negative sexual self-perceptions occurred among women who reported having experienced sexual coercion, F(2, 18) = 4.96, p < .05, but not among women whose relationships did not involve coercion, F < 1. As seen in Table II, women who experienced sexual coercion from their partners reported more negative self-perceptions overall than did women in nonabusive relationships, but these negative perceptions were attenuated somewhat by the middle of the academic year, and then remained stable.

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Analyses of women's positive sexual self-perceptions indicated that the length of time women had been in their current relationships was not a significant covariate, F < 1. Moreover, neither the presence or absence of physical/psychological abuse or sexual coercion affected women's positive sexual self-perceptions, nor did these perceptions change significantly over the course of the year (see Table II). Thus, it appears that the primary effect of abuse in women's dating relationships was more negative self-perceptions.

As seen in Table II, women who reported having experienced abuse showed greater depressive symptomatology, F(1, 104) = 11.62, p < .001, [[eta].sup.2] = .100, and lower levels of self-esteem, F(1, 104) = 14.12, p < .001, [[eta].sup.2] = .120, than women who had not experienced abuse. Similarly, the presence of sexual coercion in women's relationships was associated with greater depressive symptomatology, F(1, 104) = 4.99, p < .05, [[eta].sup.2] = .046, and lower levels of self-esteem, F(1, 104) = 4.13, p < .05, [[eta].sup.2] = .038, than was evident among women who did not report sexual coercion.

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