Citation

Bernard NK, Levendosky AA, Yalch MM, Lannert BK. Violence Vict. 2019; 34(3): 522-535.

Affiliation

Emory University School of Medicine.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Springer Publishing)

DOI

10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-18-00095

PMID

31171732

Abstract

Symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are some of the most common mental health symptoms women experience following exposure to dating violence (DV). However, not all women who experience DV exhibit PTSD symptoms. One factor that may influence whether or not women exhibit PTSD symptoms in the aftermath of DV exposure is interpersonal style, often operationalized in terms of two orthogonal dimensions, warmth and dominance. In this study, we examined the main and moderating effects of warmth and dominance on the association between DV and PTSD symptoms using latent moderating structural equation modeling in a sample of 303 female college students who reported DV exposure in the past year.

RESULTS indicated that warmth exerted a main effect predicting fewer PTSD symptoms. In addition, dominance moderated the association between DV and PTSD symptoms such that at high levels of DV, women who were high on dominance reported fewer PTSD symptoms than did women who were low on dominance. These findings suggest that aspects of interpersonal style may promote resilience to symptoms of posttraumatic stress following DV exposure. Directions for future research are also discussed.

© Copyright 2019 Springer Publishing Company, LLC.

Language: en

Keywords

PTSD; dating violence; dominance; interpersonal style; warmth