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An Examination of Experiential Avoidance Eastern Michigan University DigitalCommons@EMU Master's Theses, and Doctoral Dissertations, and Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations Graduate Capstone Projects 2014 An examination of experiential avoidance as a vulnerability factor for posttraumatic stress symptoms and excessive behaviors in parent and young adult child dyads Meaghan M. Lewis Follow this and additional works at: http://commons.emich.edu/theses Part of the Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Lewis, Meaghan M., "An examination of experiential avoidance as a vulnerability factor for posttraumatic stress symptoms and excessive behaviors in parent and young adult child dyads" (2014). Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. 828. http://commons.emich.edu/theses/828 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses, and Doctoral Dissertations, and Graduate Capstone Projects at DigitalCommons@EMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@EMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. An Examination of Experiential Avoidance as a Vulnerability Factor for Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms and Excessive Behaviors in Parent and Young Adult Child Dyads by Meaghan M. Lewis Thesis Submitted to the Department of Psychology Eastern Michigan University in partial fulfillments of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE in Clinical Behavioral Psychology Thesis Committee: Tamara M. Loverich, Ph.D., Chair Ellen I. Koch, Ph.D., Member Flora Hoodin, Ph.D., Member July 15, 2014 Ypsilanti, Michigan Parent and Young Adult Child Experiential Avoidance and Traumatic Stress ii Acknowledgments My thanks go primarily to my advisor, Dr. Tamara Loverich, for her kind and supportive mentorship throughout completing this thesis and for welcoming me into her research lab as a new graduate student. I know that I have a lifelong mentor, colleague, enthusiast, and friend in her. I thank her for pushing me to move forward in my career, particularly in the presence of my self-doubts. She inspired me to commit to this research area and continue my education by pursuing my doctorate because it mattered to me. I am so grateful for her wisdom and compassionate support. Thank you to my committee members, Dr. Ellen Koch and Dr. Flora Hoodin for the helpful input and feedback that went into this project. I would also like to acknowledge the participant recruitment of Kern Stanley, Arsh Kaur, David Phillips, JooHyun Lee, Ashley Wiedemann, Shaun Ho, Keith Davis, and Jessica Irish. Appreciations to Natalie Nugent for reviewing my initial thesis proposal PowerPoint and Dr. Jeremy Albright for his statistical consultation. Parent and Young Adult Child Experiential Avoidance and Traumatic Stress iii Abstract Experiential avoidance is receiving increasing conceptual and empirical review as an emotion regulation strategy and crucial factor in the development and maintenance of symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD; Kumpula, Orcutt, Bardeen, & Varkovitzky, 2011; Thompson & Waltz, 2010). It is also implicated in a variety of topographically dissimilar problem behaviors (Kingston, Clarke, & Remington, 2010; Mansell et al., 2009) and poor mental health outcomes. The transmission of effective emotion regulatory strategies (Duncombe et al., 2012) is increasingly important to understanding the development of these problems. Experiential avoidance may be a learned response style from one’s parent. This conceptual model was used to test the predictive power of parent experiential avoidance to young adult child experiential avoidance, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and excessive behaviors. Cross-sectional survey methodology was employed in a university setting, using a sample of parent and young adult child dyads. Significant discrepancies in the measurement of experiential avoidance were observed. Overall, the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II was the strongest predictor of posttraumatic stress symptoms and excessive behaviors between and within dyads, above and beyond trauma itself. Parent experiential avoidance influenced young adult child experiential avoidance and parents appeared to engage in more harmful behaviors than their young adult children. Implications for understanding the influence of parent behaviors and experiential avoidance for young adults are discussed. Keywords: experiential avoidance, trauma, families, AAQ-II, MEAQ Parent and Young Adult Child Experiential Avoidance and Traumatic Stress iv Table of Contents Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iii Problem Statement .................................................................................................................... 1 Review of the Empirical Literature ........................................................................................... 5 Emotion Regulation ........................................................................................................ 5 Experiential Avoidance .................................................................................................. 7 Experiential Avoidance and Excessive Behaviors ....................................................... 10 Parent-Child Emotion Regulation and Experiential Avoidance ................................... 12 Effects of Parent Psychopathology on Child Emotion Regulation .............................. 15 Parent Experiential Avoidance ..................................................................................... 16 Parent-Child Experiential Avoidance and Excessive Behaviors .................................. 17 Harmful Sequelae of Trauma Exposure ........................................................................ 19 Consequences of trauma exposure for children .................................................... 20 The Role of Experiential Avoidance in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder ........................ 21 Experiential avoidance and peritraumatic dissociation........................................ 23 Experiential avoidance, thought suppression, and alexithymia ........................... 25 Experiential avoidance, trauma exposure, and the family context ...................... 27 Psychological Resilience and Emotion Regulation ...................................................... 29 Rationale and Hypotheses ............................................................................................ 34 Method. ................................................................................................................................... 39 Participants ................................................................................................................... 39 Parent and Young Adult Child Experiential Avoidance and Traumatic Stress v Procedure and Recruitment .......................................................................................... 39 Procedure and recruitment method one ................................................................ 39 Procedure and recruitment method two ................................................................ 42 Measures ...................................................................................................................... 43 Multidimensional experiential avoidance questionnaire ...................................... 43 Acceptance and action questionnaire-II ................................................................ 44 Composite measure of problem behaviors ............................................................ 45 Life events checklist ............................................................................................. 45 Posttraumatic stress disorder checklist-civilian version ....................................... 46 Design .......................................................................................................................... 47 Results. .................................................................................................................................... 48 Preliminary Data Analyses .......................................................................................... 48 Dyadic analyses and restructuring the dataset ...................................................... 48 Normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity .......................................................... 49 Bivariate correlations .................................................................................................. 52 Parent measure relationships ................................................................................ 52 Young adult child measure relationships ............................................................. 53 Dyadic relationships ............................................................................................ 53 Trauma history and posttraumatic stress relationships ......................................... 54 Hierarchical Multiple Linear Regression Analyses ..................................................... 54 Regression testing hypothesis (2a) ....................................................................... 55 Regression testing hypothesis (2b) ....................................................................... 55 Regression testing hypothesis (2c) ......................................................................
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