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.

中文翻译：

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青少年性骚扰受害与情感问题交织演变

性骚扰受害与情绪问题之间的联系是众所周知的。尽管如此，这种关联的本质，包括结构的时间顺序，以及它是否在个体之间或个体内部发挥作用，还远未得到理解。本研究的目的是通过区分个体间和个体内部的影响，并测试种族和性别的调节作用，探讨青春期早期和中期性骚扰受害与情绪问题之间的相互联系。在这项研究中，我们使用了 1515 名瑞典青少年的三波数据（50.6% 是女孩，T1 年龄为 12.59 岁）。交叉滞后的个体内分析表明，性骚扰和情绪问题以交易方式相关。性别而非种族调节了这种关联。这些关联在青春期早期和中期有所不同，可能是因为规范的学校过渡。这些发现具有很高的理论价值，因为性骚扰与经历情感问题之间的因果过程是在个体内部层面展开的。该研究揭示了心理和性发展关键时期个体内部的交易关联，为有关年轻人性骚扰和心理健康的文献做出了独特的贡献。