The intertwined evolution of sexual harassment victimization and emotional problems among young people

Abstract

Abstract Associations between sexual‐harassment victimization and emotional problems are well‐established. Still, the nature of this association, including the temporal order of the construct as well as whether it plays out on the between‐ or within‐individual level is far from being understood. The aim of this study was to examine reciprocal links between sexual harassment victimization and emotional problems over time in early and mid‐adolescence by separating between‐individual from within‐individual effects and by testing the moderating effect of ethnicity and gender. In the study, we made use of three waves of data with 1515 Swedish adolescents (50.6% girls, age 12.59 years at T1). Cross‐lagged within‐individual analyses showed that sexual harassment and emotional problems were related in a transactional manner. Gender, but not ethnicity, moderated the associations. The associations differed in early and mid‐adolescence, perhaps because of normative school transitions. The findings have high theoretical value as it is on the within‐individual level that the causal processes between being sexually harassed and experiencing emotional problems unfold. The study makes a unique contribution to the literature on sexual harassment and mental health among young people by revealing transactional associations on the within‐individual level during a critical period for psychological and sexual development.

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