Dimensions of Peer Sexual Harassment Victimization and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: A Longitudinal Cross-Lagged Study in a Swedish Sample

Abstract

Sexual harassment is commonly considered unwanted sexual attention and a form of gender-based violence that can take physical, verbal and visual forms and it is assumed to cause later depression in adolescents. There is a dearth of research explicitly testing this assumption and the directional pathway remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to use a feminist theoretical framework to test competing models in respect of the direction of the relationships between dimensions of peer sexual harassment victimization and dimensions of depressive symptoms from ages 14 to 16 in adolescents. The study also aimed to investigate gender differences in these pathways. Cross-lagged models were conducted using a three-wave (2010, 2011 and 2012) longitudinal study of 2330 students (51 % females) from Sweden, adjusted for social background. Girls subjected to sexual harassment in grade seven continued to experience sexual harassment the following 2 years. There was weaker evidence of repeated experience of sexual harassment among boys. Depressive symptoms were stable over time in both genders. Sexual name-calling was the dimension that had the strongest associations to all dimensions of depressive symptoms irrespective of gender. In girls, name-calling was associated with later somatic symptoms and negative affect, while anhedonia (reduced ability to experience pleasure) preceded later name-calling. Physical sexual harassment had a reciprocal relationship to somatic symptoms in girls. In boys, name-calling was preceded by all dimensions of depressive symptoms. It is an urgent matter to prevent sexual harassment victimization, as it is most likely to both cause depressive symptoms or a reciprocal cycle of victimization and depression symptoms in girls as well as boys.

The effects of non-physical peer sexual harassment on high school students’ psychological well-being in Norway: consistent and stable findings across studies

“…Similar negative effects of harassment on self-esteem and body image were found for sexual minorities and immigrants in Study 2. The possible adverse effects of being subject to nonphysical peer sexual harassment are highly comparable to findings from prior studies of adolescents that have applied broader measures of sexual harassment that also cover physical forms (e.g., Chiodo et al 2009;Dahlqvist et al 2016;Landstedt and Gillander Gådin 2011;Skoog et al 2015). The strong effect of non-physical peer sexual harassment on the psychological well-being is particularly noteworthy.…”

“…Our two cross-sectional studies complement longitudinal work suggesting that peer sexual harassment is common and that there is substantial negative effects of being sexually harassed on adolescents' well-being (Chiodo et al 2009;Dahlqvist et al 2016;Marshall et al 2013;Skoog et al 2015). Still, we need more longitudinal studies to…”

“…It is possible that students who are more depressed, anxious or have low self-esteem are disproportionally targeted for sexual harassment (Dahlqvist et al 2016;Marshall et al 2013). Depression (and possibly anxiety or low self-esteem) may be perceived as a sign of vulnerability or exploitability in the eye of the harasser (Buss and Duntley 2008).…”

“…Evidently, being subject to peer sexual harassment in middle-and high school is significantly associated with a number of psychosocial and educational problems ranging from symptoms of anxiety and depression (Dahlqvist et al 2016;Duffy et al 2004;Landstedt and Gillander Gådin 2011;Lichty and Campbell & Mons Bendixen mons.bendixen@ntnu.no 2012; Skoog et al 2015;Slaatten et al 2015), self-harm and suicidal ideation (Chiodo et al 2009), social avoidance (Duffy et al 2004), lower self-esteem and body image (Gruber and Fineran 2008;Ormerod et al 2008), loss of appetite and dieting (Chiodo et al 2009), self-injury (Chiodo et al 2009;Marshall et al 2013), and lower academic outcomes (Lichty and Campbell 2012).…”

Risk Factors for Sexual Harassment in Public Places

“…Sexual name-calling has been found to be associated with later somatic and negative affective symptoms in female victims (Dahlqvist, Landstedt, Young, & Gådin, 2016). Victimisation from sexual harassment has also been found to be associated with a risk for negative psychological outcomes such as emotional distress (Gruber & Fineran, 2008).…”