Second Place in Category #4 – Social Science

STUDENT: Emily V. Mattes

PROJECT ADVISOR: Renae McNair

ABSTRACT

Trauma can be experienced in several ways, either directly or indirectly, that cause an individual to respond emotionally. The purpose of this conceptual research is to compare how direct and indirect trauma affects an individual to be resilient when focusing on the trauma experienced through sexual violence among adults. Through conceptual research on victims who experienced trauma directly and individuals who have experienced trauma indirectly through sexual violence will be exposed to several measurement scales: Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale (CD-RISC), Impact or Event Scale- Revised (IES-R), Happily (N)ever After Survey, and semi-structured telephone interviews to test the resilience among four groups of participants; Group 1 (DG1) participants who have experienced trauma directly, Group 2 (IG2) participants who have experienced trauma indirectly in the form of family/friend, Group 3 (IG3) participants who have experienced trauma indirectly by working with victims, Group 4 (IG4) participants who do not have a personal/professional relationship to a victim but have experienced trauma indirectly through media. Results showed when exploring literature, that direct and indirect experienced trauma did not affect resiliency, but the level of impact, indirect individuals’ relationship to induvial who experience trauma through sexual violence, and re-traumatization over time affect an individual’s ability to be resilient.