Citation

Ullman SE, Filipas HH, Townsend SM, Starzynski LL. J. Interpers. Violence 2006; 21(6): 798-819.

Affiliation

University of Illinois at Chicago. seullman@uic.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0886260506288590

PMID

16672742

Abstract

This study's goal is to identify differences in background, assault, and postassault factors according to the victim-offender relationship. A mail survey is conducted with more than 1,000 female sexual assault survivors (response rate 90%) recruited from college, community, and mental health agency sources. Stranger assailants are associated with a greater victim perceived life threat, more severe sexual assaults, and ethnic minority victims. Positive social reactions do not vary according to the victim-offender relationship, but stranger victims report more negative social reactions from others than do victims of acquaintances or romantic partners. Assaults by strangers and relatives are associated with more posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms than assaults by acquaintances and romantic partners. As expected, survivors' social cognitive responses to rape and social reactions from support providers are stronger correlates of PTSD symptoms than demographic or assault characteristics in general, but correlates vary across victim-offender relationship groups.

Language: en