The Interpersonal Context of Emotion Dysregulation and Risk Perception in Women With Histories of Sexual Trauma

Abstract

Sexual victimization and assault are significant public health problems. Survivors of sexual assault have significantly increased risk for psychological health problems, physical health problems, interpersonal difficulties, and other negative outcomes. One such outcome is impaired risk perception, which is associated with increased risk for future sexual assaults. Recently, the role of emotion dysregulation as related to traumatic events, traumatic stress and their consequences has been identified as an important psychological process that may mediate survivor outcomes. The present study randomized 68 women with self-reported histories of sexual assault into a validating or invalidating experimental condition. Participants completed a baseline measure of emotionality, then the Multimorph Facial Affect Recognition (MFAR) task, then they performed a stressful task, which was followed by either validating or invalidating experimenter feedback. Then they completed risk appraisals in response to vignettes of increasingly risky situations, and then their final MFAR task. Results showed that current trauma-related problem severity did not predict the amount of time it took to identify facial expression correctly or respond to risk. Changes in emotion reactivity from Time 1 to Time 2 did predict risk perception in the stranger rape vignette but not in the acquaintance rape vignette, providing support for the importance of emotion regulation/dysregulation in understanding the sequelae of sexual victimization and, possibly, revictimization. The implications, and limitations, of these findings are discussed.