This study examined the self-structure (compartmentalization, self-complexity, and differential importance) of college students who reported maltreatment events before age 15. The focus was on emotional and sexual maltreatment, although physical maltreatment was taken into account. Only individuals who reported high sexual and high emotional events displayed the integrative self-structures expected of individuals with chronically salient negative self-aspects. Individuals who reported only sexual maltreatment had more compartmentalized self-structures than individuals with low (or no) maltreatment events. Follow-up analyses suggested that within maltreated individuals, compartmentalized self-structures were associated with lower levels of distress and defenses than were integrative self-structures, especially among those who reported only sexual events. The relatively poor adjustment of individuals with integrative self-structures is interpreted here as a sign of ongoing struggle with the negative self-beliefs that accompany maltreatment. Recent approaches to the self-concept have emphasized both the content of self-knowledge and its organizational structure (Kihlstrom, Beer, & Klein, 2003; Showers & Zeigler-Hill, 2003). Structural models typically identify processes that moderate the impact of specific 473
Recent research has shown the relationship between an attachment to caregivers and an attachment to God, an attachment to God and adult attachment, attachment to God and religiosity, and attachment and spiritual maturity, but has failed to examine the link between attachment and faith development (which includes not only the relational but also the imaginative nature in the questioning and answering process regarding philosophical notions of existence). The current project investigated the relationship between adult romantic attachment (cf. Brennan et al., 1998) and Fowler's (1981) stages of faith development in an undergraduate sample at a private, religious university (N = 95). Attachment anxiety (but not attachment avoidance) predicted faith development, such that the higher the attachment anxiety, the lower the stage of faith development.
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