The Link Between Childhood Trauma and Violence Victimization of Young Women: The Moderating Effect of Attachment Anxiety and Culture

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment is associated with poor developmental outcomes later in life. Although the relationship between childhood and adult victimization has been well established, less is known regarding the factors that might place women at lesser or greater risk for continued victimization. The present study tested two potential moderating factors of the relationship between childhood and adult victimization, namely attachment anxiety and the role of culture. Data were collected from Czech (N = 1,002; mean age = 22.78 years) and U.S. young women (N = 1,143; mean age = 19.9 years). Analytic models tested whether attachment anxiety moderated the links between three types of childhood abuse (emotional, sexual, and physical) and intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization and whether culture conditioned these relationships. Results showed that attachment anxiety did not potentiate the links between emotional or sexual abuse and IPV victimization; however, attachment anxiety potentiated the link between physical abuse and IPV. Specifically, at higher levels of attachment anxiety, the relationship between physical abuse in childhood and IPV was stronger. In addition, culture only conditioned the sexual abuse-IPV victimization relationship, where it was stronger for Czech in comparison to U.S. young women.