Betrayal Trauma and Gender Differences in Posttraumatic Stress

The purpose of the current study was to examine the role of betrayal trauma in explaining why women report higher rates of posttraumatic stress than men. Betrayal trauma theory posits that cognitive dissociation is adaptive when trauma occurs at the hands of a caregiver (Freyd, 1996). Betrayal trauma has also been linked to poorer outcomes in mental health, including depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (DePrince & Freyd, 2002^; Goldsmith, 2004). DePrince and Freyd (2002) proposed that the increased frequency with which females experience betrayals accounts in part for the correspondingly higher rates of PTSD and dissociative disorders among women. Thus, it is possible that closeness to the perpetrator acts as a partial mediator of gender differences in prevalence rates (Goldberg & Freyd, 2006). Using an online survey with a college sample (n = 1,041) and a community sample (n = 199), the findings of the current study confirmed prior research that traumas high in betrayal (e.g., abuse by a close other) are more strongly associated with symptoms of posttraumatic stress than traumas lower in betrayal (e.g., natural disaster or abuse by someone not close to the victim). Women also reported higher rates of depression, anxiety, and reexperiencing symptoms of PTSD, but not avoidance and hyperarousal symptoms. The hypothesis that betrayal trauma would mediate the association between gender and PTSD reexperiencing symptoms was supported by statistical significance, but the effect was not substantial.