One of the suggested antecedents of a pattern of self-defeating behavior has been the experience of sexual abuse. In this study 146 male and 129 female college students self-reported whether they had experienced sexual abuse using Russell's (1983) Sexual Abuse Interview Schedule. Thirty-nine men and 73 women self-reported in the affirmative. For both men and women, the abused groups had significantly higher scores on Schill's 1990 Self-defeating Personality Scale. Results were related to other research, e.g., Kisler and Schill's 1995 work which showed scores on the Self-defeating scale were also correlated with scores on measures of bulimia and dissociative experiences.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BeitchmanJ. H.ZuckerK. J.HoodJ. E.daCostaG. A.AkmanD., & CassaviaE. (1992) A review of the long-term effects of child sexual abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 16, 101–118.
2.
KislerV., & SchillT. (1995) Relation among self-defeating personality, troubled eating patterns, and dissociation. Psychological Reports, 76, 780–782.
3.
RussellD. E. H. (1983) The incidence and prevalence of intrafamilial sexual abuse of female children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 7, 133–146.
4.
SandbergD., & LynnS. J. (1992) Dissociative experiences, psychopathology and adjustment, and child and adolescent maltreatment in female college students. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 101, 717–723.
5.
SchillT. (1990) A measure of self-defeating personality. Psychological Reports, 66, 1343–1346.
