Publication Date
2025
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
First Advisor
Orcutt, Holly Kay
Degree Name
M.A. (Master of Arts)
Legacy Department
Department of Psychology
Abstract
Childhood emotional abuse is a relatively common form of childhood maltreatment that has been associated with adverse impacts spanning numerous diagnostic categories. Maladaptive interpersonal processes appear to be implicated in the pathway from childhood emotional abuse to later psychopathology. Rejection sensitivity, in particular, has demonstrated a strong association with emotional abuse and appears to mediate the relationship between emotional abuse and depression. However, several authors have challenged the prevailing understanding of rejection sensitivity as a unidimensional, trait-like construct, and more detailed exploration is needed to understand the unique cognitive and affective processes that drive maladaptive responses to rejection following emotional abuse. This project explored the possibility that emotional abuse severity is associated with more internal causal attributions of social rejection and more external attributions of social acceptance. Participants were asked to answer a series of personal questions about themselves and then randomly assigned to imagine being socially accepted or rejected based on the information they shared. Participants then rated their perceived locus of causality of the hypothetical outcome. A main effect of experimental condition was observed, such that participants in the acceptance condition made more internal attributions of their classmate’s decision. In the initial sample analyzed after reaching the target number of observations, an interaction effect was found between experimental condition and emotional abuse severity such that the main effect of experimental condition was attenuated at higher levels of childhood emotional abuse. However, no such interaction was observed in the final sample analyzed at the end of the semester. The simple effect of childhood emotional abuse on locus of causality within the rejection condition was not significant. It appears the theoretical model tested in this study may only hold under certain conditions. Nonetheless, additional research is warranted to further explore how cognitive and affective responses to rejection may be influenced by childhood emotional abuse.
Recommended Citation
Ong, Laura, "Causal Attributions of Social Rejection and Acceptance Following Childhood Emotional Abuse" (2025). Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations. 8132.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allgraduate-thesesdissertations/8132
Extent
84 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
