Rachel E. Goldsmith

System Justification, the Denial of Global Warming, and the Possibility of “System-Sanctioned Change”

Despite extensive evidence of climate change and environmental destruction, polls continue to reveal widespread denial and resistance to helping the environment. It is posited here that these responses are linked to the motivational tendency to defend and justify the societal status quo in the face of the threat posed by environmental problems. The present research finds that system justification tendencies are associated with greater denial of environmental realities and less commitment to pro-environmental action. Moreover, the effects of political conservatism, national identification, and gender on denial of environmental problems are explained by variability in system justification tendencies. However, this research finds that it is possible to eliminate the negative effect of system justification on environmentalism by encouraging people to regard pro-environmental change as patriotic and consistent with protecting the status quo (i.e., as a case of “system-sanctioned change”). Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Emotion regulation difficulties, low social support, and interpersonal violence mediate the link between childhood abuse and posttraumatic stress symptoms

We examined how difficulties with emotion regulation, social support, and interpersonal violence in adult relationships mediated the relationship between childhood abuse and post traumatic symptoms (PTS) in adults. We fit a multiple mediation model to data from 139 socio-economically disadvantaged women (85% African American) of whom 44% endorsed moderate to severe levels of childhood physical, sexual, or emotional abuse and 12% screened positive for probable posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The model accounted for 63% of the variance in adult PTS symptoms. Child abuse exerted a direct effect on PTS symptoms and indirect effects through difficulties with emotion regulation, lower social support, and greater exposure to adult interpersonal violence. Implications of findings for the treatment of individuals at high risk of having experienced childhood abuse and PTS are discussed.

Betrayal Trauma: Associations with Psychological and Physical Symptoms in Young Adults.

Betrayal trauma, or trauma perpetrated by someone with whom a victim is close, is strongly associated with a range of negative psychological and physical health outcomes. However, few studies have examined associations between different forms of trauma and emotional and physical symptoms. The present study compared betrayal trauma to other forms of trauma as predictors of young adults’ psychological and physical symptoms, and explored potential mediators. A total of 185 university undergraduate students completed the Brief Betrayal Trauma Survey, the Trauma Symptom Checklist, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, and the Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness. For each set of symptoms, simultaneous multiple regressions assessed the relative contributions of low versus high betrayal trauma to psychological and physical health reports. Structural equation models examined traumatic stress symptoms and alexithymia as mediators of the relationship between betrayal trauma and physical health symptoms. A total of 151 participants (82%) reported exposure to at least 1 of 11 forms of trauma queried (M = 2.08, SD = 1.94); 96 participants (51.9%) reported at least 1 betrayal trauma. Traumas characterized by high betrayal predicted alexithymia, anxiety, depression, dissociation, physical health complaints, and the number of days students reported being sick during the past month, whereas other traumas did not. Structural equation modeling revealed that traumatic stress symptoms and alexithymia mediated the association between betrayal trauma and physical health complaints. These results indicate that betrayal trauma is associated with young adults’ physical and mental health difficulties to a greater extent than are other forms of trauma. Results may inform assessment, intervention, and prevention efforts.

Distress among women receiving uninformative BRCA1/2 results: 12‐month outcomes

Objective: Few data are available regarding the long‐term psychological impact of uninformative BRCA1/2 test results. This study examines change in distress from pretesting to 12‐months post‐disclosure, with medical, family history, and psychological variables, such as pretesting perceived risk of carrying a deleterious mutation prior to testing and primary and secondary appraisals, as predictors.

Emotion regulation difficulties mediate associations between betrayal trauma and symptoms of posttraumatic stress, depression, and anxiety

Emotion regulation difficulties following trauma exposure have received increasing attention among researchers and clinicians. Previous work highlights the role of emotion regulation difficulties in multiple forms of psychological distress and identifies emotion regulation capacities as especially compromised among survivors of betrayal trauma: physical, sexual, or emotional maltreatment perpetrated by someone to whom the victim is close, such as a parent or partner. It is unknown, however, whether links between emotion regulation difficulties and psychological symptoms differ following exposure to betrayal trauma as compared with other trauma types. In the present study, 593 male and female university undergraduates completed the Difficulties with Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004), the Brief Betrayal Trauma Scale (Goldberg & Freyd, 2006), the Impact of Event Scale (Horowitz, Wilner, & Alvarez, 1979), and the Trauma Symptom Checklist (Elliott & Briere, 1992). A path analytic model demonstrated that betrayal trauma indirectly impacted symptoms of intrusion (β = .11), avoidance (β = .13), depression (β = .17), and anxiety (β = .14) via emotion regulation difficulties, an effect consistent with mediation. Emotion regulation difficulties did not mediate the relationship between other trauma exposure and psychological symptoms. Results may inform treatment-matching efforts, and suggest that emotion regulation difficulties may constitute a key therapeutic target following betrayal trauma.

KNOWING AND NOT KNOWING ABOUT TRAUMA: IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPY

Levels of awareness for trauma and their consequences for research, treatment, and prevention within professional psychology and society are considered. When people must endure chronically traumatic environments, it may be adaptive to isolate from awareness information that would produce cognitive dissonance and threaten necessary relationships. Unawareness may also facilitate functioning in environments that invalidate the prevalence and impact of trauma. In addition, characteristics of the posttraumatic environment can promote or impede individuals’ awareness of trauma and their psychological functioning. Though often initially adaptive, unawareness for trauma is linked to intergenerational transmission of trauma and its effects and may preclude public and professional attention to trauma treatment and prevention. Understanding the processes through which individuals become unaware or aware of traumatic experience is therefore essential to conducting effective psychotherapy with trauma survivors.

Interpersonal violence, PTSD, and inflammation: potential psychogenic pathways to higher C-reactive protein levels.

Interpersonal violence (IPV) is major public health concern with wide-ranging sequelae including depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and possible alterations of immune and inflammation processes. There is a need to identify the psycho-biological pathways through which IPV may translate to altered inflammatory processes since both PTSD and inflammation are associated with serious physical health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. This study investigated the relationships between IPV, psychological distress, and the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein (CRP), in a sample of 139 urban women who have a high likelihood for having experienced IPV. Participants were recruited from an outpatient gynecology clinic to complete self-report measures about their IPV histories and psychological symptoms, as well as to have their blood sampled using a finger stick. Results indicated that exposure to IPV predicted the presence of probable depression and PTSD diagnoses. Individuals who experience clinical levels of PTSD exhibited higher CRP levels, and this relationship held after adjusting for comorbid depression. Correlational analyses suggested that reexperiencing symptoms may explain the link between PTSD diagnosis and higher levels of CRP. Follow-up path analytic models provided good fit to the overall data, and indicated that the relationship between probable PTSD status and CRP is not explained by higher BMI. Overall, these findings call for increased attention to the role of PTSD in explaining links between trauma and diminished health.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms: Building Acceptance and Decreasing Shame

Mindfulness-based psychotherapies are associated with reductions in depression and anxiety. However, few studies address whether mindfulness-based approaches may benefit individuals with posttraumatic stress symptoms. The current pilot study explored whether group mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy reduced posttraumatic stress symptoms, depression, and negative trauma-related appraisals in 9 adult participants who reported trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress or depression. Participants completed 8 sessions of mindfulness-based stress reduction treatment, as well as pretreatment, midtreatment, and posttreatment assessments of psychological symptoms, acceptance of emotional experiences, and trauma appraisals. Posttraumatic stress symptoms, depression, and shame-based trauma appraisals were reduced over the 8-week period, whereas acceptance of emotional experiences increased. Participants’ self-reported amount of weekly mindfulness practice was related to increased acceptance of emotional experiences from pretreatment to posttreatment. Results support the utility of mindfulness-based therapies for posttraumatic stress symptoms and reinforce studies that highlight reducing shame and increasing acceptance as important elements of recovery from trauma.

Evidence of Dissociative Amnesia in Science and Literature: Culture-Bound Approaches to Trauma in Pope, Poliakoff, Parker, Boynes, and Hudson (2007)

The current culture of traumatic stress studies includes research that identifies the ways in which stress and trauma impair learning and memory in both humans and animals. Yet it also contains health professionals who argue that individuals cannot forget traumatic events. Many accounts present differences among these positions as a legitimate debate despite the substantial forensic, survey, and neurological evidence that both demonstrates the capacity for people to exhibit impaired memory for trauma and highlights specific mechanisms. In a recent article, H. G. Pope, M. B. Poliakoff, M. P. Parker, M. Boynes, and J. I. Hudson (2007) hypothesized that if individuals could forget trauma, the phenomenon would appear in world literature prior to 1800. They conducted a contest to generate submissions of examples and determined that dissociative amnesia is a culture-bound syndrome. Their report fails to provide a thorough account of all submissions and the process through which they were all rejected, offers highly questionable literary analyses, and includes several misrepresentations of the state of the science regarding memory for trauma. This response addresses methodological problems with the contest, explores examples of forgetting trauma from literature written before 1800, examines social and historical aspects of the issue, and summarizes the extensive cognitive and neurological data that Pope et al. did not consider. The present article conceptualizes the premise of the contest and the authors’ conclusion as symptomatic of a culture affected by biases that include the denial of trauma and its effects.

The Gender Gap in Environmental Attitudes: A System Justification Perspective

System justification refers to a psychological tendency to maintain certainty, security, and solidarity through motivated perceptions of the status quo and the extant socioeconomic system as beneficial, fair, stable, and legitimate, especially in response to dependency and threat. System justification impedes efforts to address societal challenges, and in particular gives rise to denial, resistance, and inaction in the face of climate change and environmental problems. Women chronically engage in less system justification than men, and this difference partially explains women’s greater willingness to acknowledge ecological problems and risks and to engage in actions that are beneficial for the environment. We demonstrate that reframing environmental messages as consistent with upholding the established way of life and the well-being of our society gives rise to increased support for environmental efforts on the part of those who are especially motivated to justify the system and can therefore help to narrow the ideological gap in environmental attitudes and behaviors.