A laboratory examination of risky sexual behavior among female sexual trauma survivors

• Published in: Journal of traumatic stress 2022-12, Vol.35 (6), p.1783-1791
• Main Authors: Mahoney, Colin T., Lawyer, Steven R., Pemberton, Shelby E., Marchant, Kaitlyn M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Female; Humans; Risk-Taking; Sexual behavior; Sexual Behavior - psychology; Sexual Trauma; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic; Survivors; Trauma
• ISSN: 0894-9867; 1573-6598
• DOI: 10.1002/jts.22866

Sexual violence against women is highly prevalent on college campuses. Survivors of sexual violence often engage in coping strategies such as risky sexual behavior. The present study used a behavioral task to measure sexual risk‐taking following experiences of positive or negative affect and an emotion suppression experimental manipulation. Sexually active adult female undergraduates (N = 175) completed measures of sexual traumatization and affective experiences as well as an autobiographical recall task and a delay discounting task for hypothetical sexual outcomes. Half of the participants (n = 87) were asked to suppress their emotional response to the autobiographical recall task. The findings indicate that sexual traumatization had a significant effect on risky sexual decision‐making, F(1, 167) = 23.27, p < .001, ηp2 = .12, but affective condition, F(1, 167) = .57, p = .451, and emotion suppression, F(1, 167) = .69, p = .412, exhibited no significant associations with sexual risk‐taking. These findings suggest other factors may underlie the association between sexual trauma and risky sexual behavior, but further research is warranted.