Citation

Fais CR, Lutz-Zois CJ, Goodnight JA. J. Interpers. Violence 2017; ePub(ePub): 886260517699951.

Affiliation

University of Dayton, OH, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0886260517699951

PMID

29294690

Abstract

The current study aims to understand mediators and moderators of the relationship between stalking victimization and depression. Based on the reformulated learned helplessness theory, which emphasizes the role of internal, global, and stable attributions for negative events in the development of depression, we predicted that the association between stalking victimization and depression would be mediated by attributions for the stalking and characterological self-blame. We predicted that the association between stalking victimization and helplessness attributions or characterological self-blame, in turn, would be moderated by gender, sex-role identity, and length of stalking. Specifically, we hypothesized that female victims, victims possessing a feminine sex-role identity, and victims experiencing longer stalking episodes would be more likely to experience depression in comparison with male victims, victims possessing a masculine sex-role identity, and victims experiencing shorter stalking episodes. The results indicated that global attributions for the cause of stalking significantly mediated the relationship between stalking victimization and depression. The results for stable attributions, internal attributions, and characterological self-blame were nonsignificant. Furthermore, gender, sex-role identity, and length of stalking did not moderate the association between stalking and attributional style or characterological self-blame. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Language: en

Keywords

attributional style; characterological self-blame; depression; gender; helplessness; length of stalking; sex-role identity; stalking victimization