Fear of intimacy and attachment among rape survivors.
Rape survivors’ intimacy fears shrink once you control their general anxiety.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team studied 60 college women. Half had survived rape. Half had not.
Each woman filled out three paper tests. One measured fear of closeness. One measured secure attachment. One measured general anxiety.
The study asked: Do rape survivors fear intimacy more? Does anxiety explain the gap?
What they found
At first glance, the rape survivors scored higher on fear of intimacy. They also scored lower on secure attachment.
But when the researchers held anxiety steady, most gaps vanished. Only one small difference stayed.
In plain words, higher trait anxiety—not the assault itself—explained the intimacy fears.
How this fits with other research
Rojahn et al. (2012) looked at PTSD after sexual trauma. They found little proof that meditation helps. Both papers remind us to check anxiety levels before picking an intervention.
McMillan et al. (1999) showed that structured interviews beat questionnaires for recalling trauma details. Our target used questionnaires. A BCBA might wonder if deeper interviews would change the anxiety link.
Prasher et al. (1995) tracked how warmth in early therapy helps anxious clients bond. Their panic clients mirror our rape survivors: when anxiety drops, closeness grows.
Why it matters
If you serve clients with trauma histories, test for trait anxiety first. Treat the anxiety, then reassess intimacy fears. You may find the social skills you planned to teach are already there.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of the present study was to investigate attachment and fear of intimacy among rape survivors. As previous research has documented that several domains of functioning are affected by the experience of rape, it was hypothesized that the survivors may have difficulties with attachment and intimacy. Subjects were selected from an undergraduate general psychology class on the basis of responses to a questionnaire on sexual experiences. All of the subjects were female and included 44 rape survivors and 57 controls. As predicted, rape survivors reported greater fear surrounding intimacy. Survivors also differed from the controls on all of the attachment dimensions. They reported less confidence in others' dependability, less comfort with closeness, and more fear of abandonment. Trait anxiety was also controlled in the analyses, and except for fear of abandonment, it attenuated the differences between the groups such that they were no longer significantly different.
Behavior modification, 1998 · doi:10.1177/01454455980221007