Houle Jason N, Staff Jeremy, Mortimer Jeylan T, Uggen Christopher, Blackstone Amy
Department of Sociology, Pennsylvania State University, 211 Oswald Tower University Park, PA 16802-6207.
Soc Ment Health. 2011 Jul 1;1(2):89-105. doi: 10.1177/2156869311416827.
Sexual harassment has been theorized as a stressor with consequences for the physical and mental health of its targets. Though social scientists have documented a negative association between sexual harassment and mental health, few longitudinal studies have investigated the association between sexual harassment and depressive symptoms. Using longitudinal survey data from the Youth Development Study, combined with in-depth interviews, this article draws on Louise Fitzgerald's theoretical framework, stress theory, and the life course perspective to assess the impact of sexual harassment on depressive affect during the early occupational career. In support of Fitzgerald's model, our findings confirm that sexual harassment is a stressor that is associated with increased depressive symptoms. Our quantitative results show that women and men who experience more frequent sexual harassment at work have significantly higher levels of depressed mood than non-harassed workers, even after controlling for prior harassment and depressive symptoms. Moreover, we find evidence that sexual harassment early in the career has long-term effects on depressive symptoms in adulthood. Interviews with a subset of our survey respondents point to a variety of coping strategies and reveal further links between harassment and other aspects of mental health, such as anger and self-doubt.
性骚扰被理论化为一种压力源，会对其受害者的身心健康产生影响。尽管社会科学家已记录了性骚扰与心理健康之间的负相关关系，但很少有纵向研究调查性骚扰与抑郁症状之间的关联。本文利用青年发展研究的纵向调查数据，并结合深入访谈，借鉴路易丝·菲茨杰拉德的理论框架、压力理论和生命历程视角，来评估性骚扰对早期职业生涯中抑郁情绪的影响。为支持菲茨杰拉德的模型，我们的研究结果证实，性骚扰是一种与抑郁症状增加相关的压力源。我们的定量结果表明，即使在控制了先前的骚扰和抑郁症状之后，在工作中遭受更频繁性骚扰的女性和男性，其抑郁情绪水平也显著高于未受骚扰的员工。此外，我们发现有证据表明，职业生涯早期的性骚扰会对成年后的抑郁症状产生长期影响。对我们部分调查受访者的访谈指出了多种应对策略，并揭示了骚扰与心理健康其他方面（如愤怒和自我怀疑）之间的进一步联系。
