Master of Arts, Miami University, 2010, Psychology

This study explored two potential barriers to college women's sexual assertiveness: fear of sexual powerlessness and emotion dysregulation. Analyses also examined whether sexual victimization is associated with such problems. It was hypothesized that fear of sexual powerlessness would facilitate a sexually assertive response for women with strong emotion regulation skills, but would be debilitating for women high in emotion dysregulation. Results obtained from surveys completed by 502 college women indicated that fear of sexual powerlessness, and to a lesser extent emotion dysregulation, are barriers to sexual assertiveness. There was preliminary support for the notion that these two factors interact to impede assertiveness, but not to facilitate assertiveness. Sexually victimized women had greater problems with sexual assertiveness, fear of sexual powerlessness, and emotion dysregulation. Given that identified barriers can be targeted, these findings have important implications for interventions to improve sexual assertiveness and for sexual victimization risk reduction programming.

Committee: Terri Messman-Moore PhD (Advisor); Margaret Wright PhD (Committee Member); Amanda Diekman PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology