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Sexual victimization has been associated with significant negative health outcomes as well as increased healthcare utilization (e.g., Breiding et al., 2013; Sickel et al., 2002). However, due to fear, embarrassment, or confidentiality concerns (Logan et al., 2004; Nasta et al., 2005), women may mistrust medical advice and not adhere to treatment recommendations, exacerbating development of negative health outcomes. Some research (Meade et al., 2009) has identified sexual victimization as a predictor of medical nonadherence, but to our knowledge no research has examined the role of medical mistrust in this relationship. A sample of 857 women was recruited via social media. Regression analyses in R Markdown revealed that sexual trauma was a significant predictor of both medical nonadherence (b = 0.4, SE = .08, p < .0001) and medical mistrust (b = 1.36, SE = .027 p < .0001), and further that medical mistrust predicted medical nonadherence (b = 0.06 SE = .01, p < .0001). Additionally, medical mistrust was found to significantly mediate the relationship between sexual trauma and medical nonadherence (b = .09, SD = .03, 95% CI =.04, .14). Results emphasize the importance of trauma-informed care and patient-provider rapport in bolstering resiliency and strengthening survivors’ adherence to medical recommendations. Suggestions for further application and intervention will be discussed.

Abstract available in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

The current study investigates the correlates of partner-directed relational aggression in married couples. In particular, this study looks at the connection between romantic relational aggression and the personal outcome of depression. Both the experience of victimization and perpetration of romantic relational aggression are considered. Victimization may be linked to depression through the concept of the “looking glass self” and reflected appraisals. Aggression, in contrast, may be linked to depression through dissatisfaction with one’s own aggressive tendencies in the relationship and a lack of “relational self-esteem”. Couples who completed the RELATE assessment were asked to report on their partner’s engagement in relationally aggressive strategies (both the love withdrawal and social sabotage subtypes) toward them. These scores were then used to predict self-reports of depression of both spouses. Bivariate correlations showed, with only one exception, that all aggression strategies were modestly yet significantly correlated with depression for aggressors and victims. In the SEM structural model, controlling for covariates, female love withdrawal was found to significantly predict male depression and male love withdrawal marginally predicted male depression. In this respect, victimization showed a stronger link to depression than aggression. There was no difference between social sabotage and love withdrawal in their predictive value. Women were found to report more aggression (of both subtypes) and depression. Clinical implications are discussed.

The last few years a struggle of feeling safe has become more of an issue with all the tragedies that have taken place on college campuses throughout the years. Tragedies like Columbine then Virginia Tech and most recently the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Connecticut. This research focuses on student's perception of safety and the issues with violence on campus. The question is how the students, faculty, and staff will react if an incident like this occurs on the University of Central Florida campus. The intent of this thesis was to explore the student body of UCF students and their perception of safety on campus. Students were questioned on previous victimization and campus related crime. Findings suggest that women overall are more fearful on campus compared to men. Sadly, only about 5.6 percent of my sample knew about the Clery Act. This act states all public schools must post all crimes committed on or near campus on a public website. This was questioned with a simple yes or no answer. By conducting this study I hope to find a better understanding on how UCF student's view safety on campus.

Any type of bullying can become a traumatic event for a child, leading to lasting negative effects. Specifically, victimization may lead to numerous behavioral problems and lowered self-esteem. Also, the quality of attachment may have a predictive relationship with the victimization and the negative outcomes it may cause. Other research implied that a similar relationship may be found between retrospective bullying and humanity-esteem. Despite the collective research done on these variables, no study, until now, has looked at retrospective bullying, humanity-esteem, attachment, behavior problems, and self-esteem all together. This study not only looked at the relationships among these variables but also the role that humanity-esteem and attachment served between victimization, later behavior problems, and later self-esteem. One hundred thirty-six participants completed five questionnaires assessing experiences of retrospective bullying, humanity-esteem, current attachment relationships, behavior problems, and self-esteem. The results of this study indicated that participants who reported having been bullied previously also endorsed internalizing and externalizing problems as well as low self-esteem. Further, humanity-esteem and attachment both served as significant predictors of victimized individuals' behavioral problems and self-esteem. Such findings suggested that a higher view of humanity and secure attachment may serve as a protective factor against the negative outcomes that may be related to having been bullied. The importance of studying the relationships among these variables is discussed further.

Much of the existing research on violence against homeless women has concluded that homeless women are particularly vulnerable to violence and experience victimization at rates often exceeding the rates of housed women. Little research, however, has focused upon the specific risk factors that expose homeless women to physical assault, rape, and stalking. Utilizing a sample of 737 homeless women from the Florida cities of Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa, and Miami, this study investigated the risk factors for experiencing adult personal victimization. The characteristics of homelessness, demographics, drug and alcohol use, subsistence activities, childhood victimization, mental health status, and criminal activities were examined as predictors of violence. The results indicate that over three-quarters of the sample had experienced violence, physical, sexual, or stalking, as adults. Consistent with prior research, childhood sexual abuse and time spent in jail or prison were significant predictors of violence. However, contrary to prior research, severe childhood physical abuse did not predict adult violence. Rather, the key childhood predictors of adult violence appear to center upon abuse that is primarily emotional in nature. Also contrary to prior research, the excessive use of alcohol or illicit drugs and engaging in risky subsistence activities did not predict violence. The results also imply that the women's experiences of violence may precipitate their episodes of homelessness, indicating that the violence is a cause of their homelessness. Violence against women continues to be a significant social problem particularly among especially vulnerable populations such as homeless women. Such violence deserves the attention of service providers such as healthcare workers, social services, and criminal justice systems.

Bullying research has grown tremendously throughout the years, and yet, there is a lack of research investigating the biological underpinnings of bullying victimization and perpetration. The single nucleotide polymorphism catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met is an important candidate gene that has been demonstrated to interact with environmental factors and play an important role in emotion processing. However, it remains unknown whether COMT Val158Met influences youth and adolescents’ involvement as both targets and perpetrators of bullying, considering bully-victims are found to struggle with emotion regulation. To address this knowledge gap, the role of COMT Val158Met on the joint trajectories of bullying victimization and perpetration was investigated in a longitudinal community sample. A latent class growth analysis (LCGA) was used to identify distinct patterns of bullying victimization and perpetration across the ages 10 to 18 years (n = 648). A three-class solution was chosen for bullying victimization where most participants were reflected in a trajectory of low decreasing bullying victimization (74%), followed by moderate stable trajectory of bullying victimization (23%) and a final group following a high stable trajectory of bullying victimization (3%). A two-class solution was chosen for bullying perpetration. As predicted, most participants were reflected in the low stable bullying perpetration group (83%) and a small group followed a moderate increasing/decreasing trajectory of bullying perpetration (16.4%). Dual trajectory models revealed distinct subgroup of individuals involved in bullying either as targets, perpetrators, or bully-victims. Conditional probabilities results suggest that highly victimized youth would in time perpetrate against others while remaining targets of high levels of perpetration (i.e., target to bully-victim), whereas youth moderately victimized were more likely to be uninvolved in bullying perpetration. There was no significant difference in allelic variations (i.e., any Met allele vs Val/Val) of COMT Val158Met between bully-victims and children uninvolved in bullying. Implications of these findings are discussed from a differential susceptibility model. Gaining an understanding of the mechanisms behind the impact of bullying victimization and perpetration on children and adolescent will help provide insight and support for school and clinical prevention and intervention efforts.