Gemmink, Marrit (2025) The Relation Between Childhood Physical and Sexual Abuse and the Experience of Positive Affect Later in Life. Master thesis, Psychology.
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Abstract
Childhood maltreatment (CM), including physical and sexual abuse, has been associated with adverse psychological and physical outcomes. Positive affect (PA) has been associated with adaptive behaviours that can increase well-being. Therefore, the current research explores the relationship between PA dynamics (intensity, variability and instability) later in life and physical and sexual abuse in childhood. Previous research, operationalizing positive affect by using two clusters, did hardly find associations regarding these abuse types. For this reason, the current study measured the positive emotions (energetic, enthusiastic, cheerful, relaxed, calm, content) separately. Additionally, the current study explores the role of age in this relationship, since positive emotion dynamics are subject to developmental trajectories. The data was selected from the “HowNutsAreTheDutch” project (N=290). All participants provided longitudinal data of their experienced emotions alongside retrospective physical and sexual abuse reports. Results showed no significant relationship between physical or sexual abuse with any of the PA dynamics. PA intensity did increase with age, and variability and instability decreased. However, age did not play a role in the relationship between abuse and PA. These findings suggest measuring PA emotion dynamics distinctively does not gain more significant insights into the relationship with abuse. While physical and sexual abuse are found to negatively impact well-being, their influences on PA dynamics seem to be limited. Future research should consider co-occurrence with other abuse types, higher levels of reported abuse and more prospective data collection. Keywords: positive affect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotion dynamics
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
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| Supervisor name: | Jonge, P. de and Jonge-Hoekstra, L. de |
| Degree programme: | Psychology |
| Differentiation route: | Ontwikkelingspsychologie (O) [Master Psychology] |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Mar 2025 14:29 |
| Last Modified: | 11 Mar 2025 14:29 |
| URI: | http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4762 |
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