BTT examines betrayals that occur in interpersonal relationships, such as those between a parent and child or between spouses. These betrayals, such as emotional abuse, rape or physical attacks, are often traumatic for the victim, and can result in a variety of negative outcomes, including depression, anxiety, physical health complaints, impaired memory -- and an increased likelihood of additional trauma exposure.
Five of Freyd's graduate students presented research at the 2008 annual meetings of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the Psychonomics Society and the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, held Nov. 13-17 in Chicago. The current research of three of those students is profiled here:
* Bridget Klest: Social status, gender, ethnicity and mental health symptoms
* Robyn Gobin: Trust and betrayal
* Laura Kaehler: Borderline Personality Disorder and trauma
Freyd's team occupies five rooms in Straub Hall, referred to as the "Dynamics Lab." But the "lab" is more of a more virtual, rather than an actual place. Some studies are conducted in Straub, but much of the research occurs through surveys mailed to participants and even on the Internet.
The lab's name is a throwback to an earlier time; when Freyd first came to the university, she conducted research in a different area. She started adding in betrayal trauma studies and eventually switched to that area entirely. However, the name stuck.
The Dynamics Lab offers a singular focus on betrayal trauma, which is what separates it from other research groups across the country. Some of the others conduct research and publish literature in the area, including a lab run by Anne DePrince, a former Freyd student who is now an associate professor at the University of Denver. But Freyd's is the only one in the country to focus exclusively on betrayal trauma.
For more information on Freyd's Dynamics Lab, visit http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/.
To read more about each student's work, click on her name: Bridget Klest, Robyn Gobin, Laura Kaehler.
Bridget Klest: Low Status May Influence Mental Health
Do men and women develop the same mental health symptoms as a result of trauma? What about people of different ethnicities?
Bridget Klest is using a highly diverse sample of individuals from Hawaii to try to answer these questions in her dissertation work. But she is finding that -- rather than gender or ethnic group -- a broader concept she calls "status" may be the key to some psychological issues.
Many research studies are primarily made up of young, middle-class Caucasians. But that's not the case with Klest's participants: Caucasians, Native Hawaiians and people of Japanese ancestry each comprise roughly 25 percent of the sample. Individuals from approximately 20 other ethnicities make up the final quarter, including Filipino, Chinese, Pacific Islander and African American.
Klest used the results from 238 men and 265 women in her study to analyze depression symptoms among gender and ethnic groups. In general, women tend to show higher rates of depression than men. Unexpectedly, however, Klest has observed that this trend isn't universal: Men in some demographics can also have higher incidence of depression.
Not surprisingly, the Caucasian men had the lowest depression symptom scores of any ethnic group. Next highest were the men of Japanese ancestry, and highest of all were Native Hawaiian men, whose scores were so high they mirrored the rates of the women.
Klest, a fifth-year clinical psychology student, hypothesizes that status may play a role in these findings. Generally, women occupy a lower status in society than men, she said, which means they tend to have fewer resources at their disposal, such as access to health care, education, and financial and social support. As a result, their internal coping abilities may be more easily depleted, which renders them less able to deal with external stressors such as trauma.
In Hawaii, Native Hawaiian men are considered to have a low status, and thus, have fewer resources. The ones in Klest's sample also reported relatively high rates of trauma. Their disadvantages may have led to more difficulty in coping with traumas, which would explain why their depression symptom levels are similar to those of the women in the sample.
Findings such as these are important, Klest said, for both treatment and intervention efforts. Different groups may need different kinds of treatment, with social context taken into account. One type of therapy, for instance, may not be effective for all ethnic and gender groups. Additionally, if intervention efforts can be targeted to groups at the highest risk for particular problem outcomes, depression being one example, they will likely be more effective than global, non-tailored efforts.
Klest's data is preliminary and she still has additional variables to examine, such as other health measures and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms, but she expects so see similar patterns to those from the depression analysis.
The people in Klest's study came from a larger longitudinal cohort study on personality and health being conducted at Oregon Research Institute by Sarah Hampson, lead researcher, and Lew Goldberg, emeritus professor of psychology. The participants were first studied as elementary students in Hawaii about 40 years ago and are now in their forties, fifties and sixties. Five years ago, the researchers reestablished contact and have tracked them longitudinally ever since, with new data being collected about once a year.
Robyn Gobin: Understanding the Mechanics of Trust and Betrayal
Once bitten, twice shy?
Psychologists know this cliché doesn't always hold true. Some people don't seem to have a protective mechanism that keeps them from experiencing repeated betrayals. Robyn Gobin is investigating what drives this phenomenon.
The third-year clinical psychology student is currently using a computer program based on financial investment models to learn the answer.
What Gobin wants to discover, specifically, is whether previous experience with "high-betrayal trauma" impacts a person's ability to recognize a very small interpersonal betrayal involving money, and whether this lack of awareness results in failure to withdraw from the relationship in the service of self-protection. High-betrayal traumas include occurrences like physical or sexual abuse by someone close to the victim. Participants in Gobin's study will be screened for their trauma history.
The "betrayal" in the experiment is much less charged than many that occur in real life, which is an inherent limitation. However, it would be highly unethical to place people in traumatic situations in order to examine their reactions. Instead, Gobin is trying to highlight the mechanisms of betrayal to see if previous traumas are a key factor.Participants in her study receive $10 for their involvement, which is used to play the game via computer. They have the opportunity to give an online partner as much of the $10 as they want, with the understanding that the money given will be tripled in the partner's account. Then, the online partner can choose any amount of money to give back to the participants.
What participants don't know, however, is that their partner is not an actual person, but rather the computer, which will send $1 back, no matter how much of the $10 was originally given.
The money that the people in the study give to their partner, the computer, represents their inclination to trust, Gobin said. Getting only a dollar in return will be considered a violation of that trust for the purposes of the study, because she believes the participants will expect the online partner to reciprocate by returning a comparable amount of money, given that the money was shared in good faith.
After the exchange, participants are given the opportunity to describe how they feel about receiving $1. The list of options includes responses such as "content," "disappointed," "hurt," "indifferent," etc. They can also generate their own response if an unlisted one is more accurate.
What Gobin wants to learn is if the people in the study describe the violation of trust as a betrayal.
In interpersonal relationships, she explained, sometimes people choose to trust someone, but that trust isn't upheld by the other person. Often, people recognize such violations and stop trusting the betrayer or end the relationship.
However, that doesn't hold true for all. Previous studies of individuals who have experienced high-betrayal traumas early in life have found that they tend to be less trusting, but paradoxically, they also experience more non-traumatic betrayals, such as being cheated on by a romantic partner. According to betrayal traumatheory, survivors of high betrayal trauma perpetrated by a trusted or depended on perpetrator find it advantageous to ignore betrayals and place a priority on preserving relationships even when a betrayal has taken place.
After describing how they feel, the participants respond to a prompt asking them if they want to play again. Gobin predicts that choosing to play again may reflect a failure to accurately evaluate trustworthiness and label violations of trust, which could result in increased risk for further harm..
The utility in understanding the relationship between trauma and betrayal, Gobin explained, is that researchers can develop targeted interventions and help trauma victims avoid re-victimization.
Laura Kaehler: Betrayal Trauma Linked to Borderline Personality Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder is a debilitating psychological disorder. People with BPD often have volatile personal relationships and wild mood fluctuations. They can be impulsive to the extreme in activities like gambling and shopping, and may have difficulty in controlling their anger. They may engage in suicidal or harmful behaviors such as cutting or burning themselves. About 10 percent of BPD patients commit suicide.
Essentially, those afflicted with BPD -- about 2 percent of the population -- put the term "drama queen" into overdrive.
Laura Kaehler, a third-year clinical psychology graduate student, is trying to understand what causes BPD, and has found that "betrayal trauma" may play a role.
Kaehler conducted a study that assessed the trauma experiences and borderline personality characteristics of 199 UO students and found that when participants experienced certain kinds of trauma, they also tended to demonstrate borderline personality characteristics, or symptoms.
The participants filled out the Brief Betrayal Trauma Survey, which assesses the types of trauma students have experienced; traumas are differentiated by the closeness of the relationship between the victim and perpetrator.
High-betrayal traumas include incidents like a rape or physical assault by a partner or family member; medium-betrayal traumas include the same acts, but committed by someone with whom the victim isn't close, such as a stranger. Low-betrayal traumas are events like car accidents and natural disasters.
Participants also completed the Borderline Personality Inventory, whose questions assess the degree to which a person exhibits borderline personality tendencies. Participants rated the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with questions such as: "If a relationship gets close, I feel trapped;" "I enjoy having control over someone;" and "My feelings towards other people quickly change into opposite extremes (e.g., from love and admiration to hate and disappointment)."
Kaehler also discovered a relationship between high-betrayal trauma and BPI scores: Participants who had experienced these events were more likely to demonstrate more borderline personality characteristics. This finding was true regardless of gender, meaning that men were as likely to show this correlation as women.
The design of Kaehler's study could document only this correlation, not determine causality, but she said the results can play a role in better understanding the disorder and treatment.
Kaehler hypothesized that the development of BPD may be an attempt to avoid additional traumas, akin to a defense mechanism. Accordingly, the formation of a treatment emphasizing trust and betrayal issues could help people more effectively manage the disorder.