| Summary: | Introduction: Stalking and obsessional relational intrusion (ORI) victimisation research has largely focused on negative effects, consistent with a legal requirement for stalking victims to experience fear, alarm or distress. This thesis explored victim resilience.
Aims: To determine the role of coping strategies and coping self-efficacy in relation to the negative and positive outcomes for victims of stalking and ORI. To understand victim experiences of resilience.
Methods: A systematic review explored the role of stalking victims’ coping strategies on negative emotions. The primary study (online survey) additionally considered protective factors and positive outcomes in ORI victims. Given the findings about the protective factor of coping self-efficacy, a critique of the measure from the primary study (General Self-Efficacy Scale; GSE) was undertaken to consider how secure the findings were. Further, a second empirical study qualitatively explored how resilience was experienced.
Results: Coping strategies lacked or had unhelpful relationships to negative emotions (systematic review), yet different relationships to negative and positive outcomes were found, with coping self-efficacy salient for positive outcomes (primary study), whereby the GSE was a ‘good enough’ tool (critique). Finally, experience of resilience included survival and a coping self-concept (secondary study).
Discussion: There is value in understanding resilience in victims of stalking and ORI. Focus on separate aspects insufficiently captures the complexity of resilience, thus research may benefit from holistic approaches such as humanistic exploration of coping self-concept.
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