Recalled Childhood Bullying Victimization and Shame in Adulthood: The Influence of Attachment Security, Self-Compassion, and Emotion Regulation

Recalled Childhood Bullying Victimization and Shame in Adulthood: The Influence of Attachment Security, Self-Compassion, and Emotion Regulation

Bullying during childhood can have negative effects on mental health that last into adulthood and can manifest as shame, but little is known about factors that could attenuate the relationship between bullying in childhood and shame in adulthood. Three hundred twenty-two college students completed s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Traumatology (Tallahassee, Fla.) Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 21 - 32
Main Authors: Beduna, Kerry Nicole, Perrone-McGovern, Kristin Marie
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Educational Publishing Foundation 01-03-2019
Subjects:
Attachment Behavior
Bullying
Emotional Regulation
Female
Human
Male
Self-Compassion
Shame
Sympathy
Test Construction
Victimization
emotion regulation
shame
attachment
bullying
self-compassion
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Summary:Bullying during childhood can have negative effects on mental health that last into adulthood and can manifest as shame, but little is known about factors that could attenuate the relationship between bullying in childhood and shame in adulthood. Three hundred twenty-two college students completed surveys regarding bullying and cyberbullying in childhood, attachment security, ability to regulate emotions, self-compassion, and shame. A structural model that was based on an integration of attachment theory and cognitive adaptation theory was tested and compared with an alternate model that did not include the attachment variable or theory. Results from structural equation modeling provided evidence that the primary model was a better fit to the data than the alternate model. Further, attachment was found to relate to shame both directly and indirectly through the path of self-compassion. Results from this study support that shame in adulthood for survivors of childhood bullying is significantly influenced by attachment security, amount of childhood bullying, emotion regulation, and self-compassion. Results also provided evidence of a relationship between attachment security and emotion regulation and between attachment security and self-compassion.
ISSN:1085-9373
1085-9373
DOI:10.1037/trm0000162