Relationship between trauma beliefs and distress after an analogue trauma in college students

The term "trauma" was originally used to describe only the most horrific experiences, but its meaning has expanded in both public and academic circles. This has led to concerns about potential risks associated with defining the term trauma more broadly. However, little research has examined whether the breadth of individuals' trauma beliefs affects their distress after exposure to a potentially traumatic event. The purpose of this study was to examine whether preexisting trauma beliefs, measured via the Trauma subscale of the Harm Concept Breadth Scale (McGrath & Haslam, 2020), predicted distress following exposure to a film clip of a fatal car accident, which served as an analogue for a traumatic experience. In a college student sample (N = 439), individuals who endorsed broader trauma beliefs were more likely to report viewing the film clip as a trauma (f² = .03, p = .001) and to have higher ratings of negative emotion after exposure (f² = .03, p < .001), with small effect sizes, but did not report more event-related distress 2 days later (f² = .01, p = .079), controlling for covariates (e.g., neuroticism). Those who perceived the exposure as traumatic had higher scores on measures of negative emotions (f² = .11) and event-related distress (f² = .12), ps < .001, with small-to-medium effect sizes. These results suggest that applying the word "trauma" to a broader spectrum of events may be associated with more negative reactions to traumatic events and that clinicians could help individuals reframe those beliefs. Better measures of trauma beliefs and research with more diverse samples are needed to better understand the effects of trauma beliefs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).