Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Chronic Social Defeat Stress in Early Adolescent Male Mice
Published on: January 24, 2025
Abuse-specific self-schemas and self-functioning: a prospective study of sexually abused youth
Candice Feiring1, Charles M Cleland, Valerie A Simon
1Center for Youth Relationship Development, The College of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ 08628, USA. feiring@tcnj.edu
Abstract:
Potential pathways from childhood sexual abuse (CSA) to negative self-schemas to subsequent dissociative symptoms and low global self-esteem were examined in a prospective longitudinal study of 160 ethnically diverse youth with confirmed CSA histories. Participants were interviewed at the time of abuse discovery, when they were 8 to 15 years of age, and again 1 and 6 years later. Abuse-specific indicators of stigmatization, in particular the combination of shame and self-blame more than general self-blame attributions for everyday events, explained which youth with CSA histories experienced more dissociative symptoms and clinically significant levels of dissociation. Abuse-specific stigmatization was found to operate as a prospective mechanism for subsequent dissociative symptoms but not self-esteem.
Related Concept Videos
Self-Schemas
Erikson's Theory on Socioemotional Development during Adolescence
Social Foundations of Self II: The Generalized Other
Modeling in Therapy
Participant Modeling
Participant modeling involves therapists demonstrating calm and effective behaviors in situations...
Impact of Schemas
Psychosexual Theory of Development
The Five Stages of Psychosexual Development
Freud's psychosexual...

