Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA.
Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA.
J Interpers Violence. 2023 May;38(9-10):6576-6600. doi: 10.1177/08862605221135166. Epub 2022 Nov 11.
Adolescent sexual harassment victimization is increasingly recognized as a strong risk factor for dating violence victimization and perpetration. Research on this association has focused on older adolescents and on sexual harassment at a single time point rather than chronic exposure. Furthermore, potential mechanisms, such as psychological distress, are not well understood. The goals of this study were to identify whether sexual harassment victimization and psychological distress were reciprocally related, whether chronic psychological distress and sexual harassment victimization in early adolescence were associated with higher levels of dating violence involvement measured in mid-adolescence, and whether these relationships differed between boys and girls. We used longitudinal data from 4,718 US middle school students to fit regression models for the associations between sexual harassment victimization and psychological distress. We then used data from a subset of 1,279 students followed up in high school to fit marginal structural models for sixth- to eighth-grade psychological distress and sexual harassment victimization as predictors of dating violence involvement measured in ninth grade. We found that (1) sexual harassment victimization was positively, concurrently associated with psychological distress, with a stronger association among girls than boys; (2) psychological distress was positively, prospectively associated with sexual harassment victimization among girls but not boys; (3) chronic sixth- to eighth-grade psychological distress was not significantly associated with dating violence victimization or perpetration measured in ninth grade; and (4) chronic sixth- to eighth-grade sexual harassment victimization was associated with significantly higher levels of dating violence victimization and perpetration measured in ninth grade. The results support a reciprocal relationship between distress and sexual harassment victimization for early adolescent girls, and they call for further attention to gender differences in the content and impact of sexual harassment. Furthermore, the findings indicate that preventing sexual harassment in early adolescence may be critical in reducing dating violence.
青少年性骚扰受害日益被认为是约会暴力受害和施暴的一个强烈风险因素。关于这一关联的研究集中在年龄较大的青少年身上，以及单一时间点的性骚扰，而不是慢性暴露。此外，心理困扰等潜在机制还不太清楚。本研究的目的是确定性骚扰受害和心理困扰是否相互关联，青少年早期的慢性心理困扰和性骚扰受害是否与青少年中期测量的更高水平的约会暴力参与有关，以及这些关系在男孩和女孩之间是否存在差异。我们使用了来自 4718 名美国中学生的纵向数据，为性骚扰受害和心理困扰之间的关联拟合回归模型。然后，我们使用了一组 1279 名在高中继续跟踪的学生的数据，为六年级至八年级的心理困扰和性骚扰受害作为九年级测量的约会暴力参与的预测因子拟合边缘结构模型。我们发现：（1）性骚扰受害与心理困扰呈正相关，且在女孩中比男孩更强；（2）心理困扰与女孩的性骚扰受害呈正相关，而与男孩无关；（3）慢性六年级至八年级的心理困扰与九年级测量的约会暴力受害或施暴没有显著关联；（4）慢性六年级至八年级的性骚扰受害与九年级测量的约会暴力受害和施暴显著相关。这些结果支持了早期青少年女孩的困扰和性骚扰受害之间的相互关系，并呼吁进一步关注性骚扰的内容和影响在性别方面的差异。此外，研究结果表明，在青少年早期预防性骚扰对于减少约会暴力至关重要。
