Abstract: What are the causes of PTSD（Posttraumatic Stress Disorder）? One explanation is that a traumatic event may have shattered our deeply held and probably unexamined assumptions and beliefs about the world and ourselves. But many researches suggest that not all people who suffer from the same traumatic event suffer from PTSD, and that a negative social environment is a better indicator of PTSD symptomatology than a lack of positive support. The aim of the present study is to investigate how values impact PTSD symptoms of the deliberate trauma victims and, particularly, to identity whether a negative social environment mediates the influence of value to PTSD symptoms.

One hundred and three adults who came from hospitals and police stations in different regions in China responded to the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, Acknowledgement as a Victim Scale, and Schwartz Value Survey-Portrait Version. We conducted correlation analyses, ANOVA analyses, multiple regression and path analyses.

The results showed that 3 PTSD symptoms of the deliberate trauma victims manifested significant differences, with the intrusion symptom level being the highest, avoidance the second, and the hyper arousal symptom the lowest. Among different negative exterior conditions, disproval of partner and acquaintance had more apparent effects than family disapproval and social cognition. To a degree, the values could forecast 3 PTSD symptoms, and achievement was the best indicator of PTSD symptomatology of the deliberate trauma victims. Finally, the introversive values could impact on the intrusion symptom by some factors which reflected exterior criterions such as social cognition.

According to the results, we can conclude that the effects of values on PTSD symptoms of the deliberate trauma victims depend on value types and other factors which reflect exterior criterions such as social cognition. The negative influence of social disapproval on avoidance symptom of the introversive-value deliberate trauma victims suggests that we should not only think of social supporting, but also attach importance to value types during the intervention for deliberate trauma victims

Key words: value, the deliberate trauma victims, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder