Publication Date

2024

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Orcutt, Holly K.

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

Negative cognitions following exposure to traumatic events, such as viewing the self or the world negatively, are a crucial factor in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Furthermore, evidence points to traumatic exposure impacting identity and perception of the self. Effective measurement of these negative self-cognitions is important for understanding the consequences of traumatic events. Self-report measures are the most common approach to studying cognitions, but other methods such as cognitive tasks that require automatic responses may give further insight into negative posttraumatic cognitions. This study sought to investigate self-report and automatic evaluations of trauma cognitions in predicting posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and examine if a cognitive experimental measure predicted unique variance beyond self-report. In a sample of 202 undergraduates reporting a prior traumatic event, negative cognitions related to self and identity were examined. Results indicated that participants with more severe PTSS showed more bias in seeing themselves as traumatized compared to seeing others as healthy. Furthermore, scores from the cognitive experimental task were predicted only by the negative cognitions cluster of PTSD symptoms. Lastly, when scores from the cognitive task were entered into a model including common self-report measures of trauma cognitions, this task failed to predict additional unique variance of PTSS.

Extent

102 pages

Language

en

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS