Publications

Publication details [#62735]

Wardecker, Britney M., Robin S. Edelstein, Jodi A. Quas, Ingrid M. Cordón and Gail S. Goodman. 2017. Emotion Language in Trauma Narratives Is Associated With Better Psychological Adjustment Among Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 36 (6) : 623–658.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
SAGE Publications

Annotation

This inquiry explored whether childhood sexual abuse (CSA) survivors who employ emotion language when describing their abuse experiences display better mental health. It examined the trauma narratives of 55 adults employing the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program. It explored whether positive and negative emotion language in participants’ abuse narratives were linked with self- and caregiver-reported mental health symptoms and whether these associations diverged by abuse intensity. As hypothesized, participants who employed more positive and negative emotion language had better psychological results, particularly when the abuse was more intense.