Street Harassment and PTSD Symptoms in Women: Exploring the Indirect Effects of Rumination and Suppression

Street harassment is a pervasive form of gender-based violence that negatively impacts women's mental health. This study investigates the inter-construct mechanism linking street harassment to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Specifically, it examines a moderated mediation model with rumination as a mediating variable and emotional suppression as a moderator of the relationship between street harassment, rumination, and PTSD. A survey of 433 Indian women revealed that rumination partially mediates the relationship between street harassment and PTSD symptoms. Additionally, emotional suppression moderates the pathway, with higher levels of suppression weakening the association of street harassment and rumination and, subsequently, PTSD. Contrary to conventional assumptions that emotional suppression is universally maladaptive, these findings suggest it may serve a temporary adaptive function in high-stress situations by dampening the psychological consequences of harassment. These results highlight the role of emotional suppression in coping mechanisms and call for further research to explore the context-specific efficacy of emotional suppression and its implications for mental health interventions.