A Longitudinal Examination of the Consequences of Sexual Victimization for Rural Young Adult Women - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 1999 by Janine M. Zweig, Lisa J. Crockett, Aline Sayer, Judith R. Vicary

The Present Study

The current study sought to extend the prior literature in several ways. First, we investigated the psychological effects of sexual victimization in longitudinal analyses that included controls for earlier psychological adjustment. Based on prior findings, we hypothesized that both violent and nonviolent sexual coercion would be associated with poorer psychological and social/relational adjustment compared to no victimization. Second, we identified four distinct subtypes of coerced sex and compared adjustment outcomes for women who had experienced different subtypes. Our concern in these latter analyses was whether distinct types of sexual coercion differentially affected women's subsequent adjustment.

We employed a broad definition of sexual victimization: Any instance of unwanted intercourse was regarded as an instance of coercion and sexual victimization. This approach is consonant with many previous studies (e.g., Erickson & Rapkin, 1991; Himelein, 1995; Himelein, Vogel, & Wachowiak, 1994; Koss, Gidycz, & Wisniewski, 1987; Muehlenhard & Cook, 1988), but other researchers argue that some instances of unwanted intercourse are consensual and should not count as victimization (O' Sullivan & Allgeier, 1998).(1) Our goal was not to resolve this definitional issue but rather to examine the effects of different types of unwanted sex empirically in order to determine which kinds of experiences are most debilitating for women.

Analyses focused on sexual victimization experiences that occurred during adolescence and young adulthood. This period of the lifespan was selected because victimization is most likely to occur during this age range. According to the National Crime Statistics, women ages 16 to 24 are 3 times more likely than women of other ages to be raped (Harlow, 1991). Similar to the approach taken in the National Health and Social Life Survey, which differentiated between prepubertal and postpubertal victimization (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, & Michaels, 1994), subjects who experienced victimization prior to age 12 were excluded from analysis.

METHOD

Design

The present study was part of a larger ongoing project examining developmental issues for rural youth during adolescence and young adulthood. The design of the original study was a longitudinal cohort-sequential design (Baltes, Reese, & Nesselroade, 1977) where three cohorts (the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade classes in 1985) from one rural school district were followed for the past 14 years. Data collection began in junior high and occurred annually throughout high school; periodic follow-ups were conducted during the post high school years, for a total of eight waves of data.

PROCEDURE

During the fall of each school year, students were divided by gender for one class period, and trained project members administered written surveys (Crockett, Bingham, Chopak, & Vicary, 1996; Vicary, Klingamen & Harkness, 1995). Confidentiality was emphasized. Adolescents whose parents did not allow them to participate were excluded from data collection. Incentives for participation were offered through raffle items, such as tickets to football games.