Duration of Sexual Harassment and Generalized Harassment in the Workplace Over Ten Years: Effects on Deleterious Drinking Outcomes

Abstract

While harassment in the workplace has been linked to deleterious drinking outcomes, researchers have yet to examine the long-term effects of chronic workplace harassment. During a ten year longitudinal mail survey, university employees (N = 2265) were administered measures of sexual harassment, generalized workplace harassment, and problematic drinking. Using growth mixture modeling, two latent classes of workplace harassment emerged: infrequent and chronic. Demographic characteristics (gender, age, and race) predicted the shape of the trajectories and likelihood of class membership. As hypothesized, membership in the chronic harassment classes was linked to future problematic drinking, even after controlling for previous drinking.

Sexual Harassment, Psychological Distress, and Problematic Drinking Behavior Among College Students: An Examination of Reciprocal Causal Relations

“…There were no reciprocal relations involving binge drinking, which was surprising considered past research finding relations between SH and binge drinking among adults (e.g., McGinley, Richman, & Rospenda, 2011; Richman et al, 1999). Perhaps binge drinking is so common among college students that associations with specific risk factors like SH are diluted by the stronger risk factor of merely being in college.…”

Risk factors and outcomes of chronic sexual harassment during the transition to college: Examination of a two-part growth mixture model

“…Research on SH and gender has been mixed. While several studies have reported that women experience greater mean levels of SH than men (Berdahl and Moore, 2006; Das, 2009; Hand and Sanchez, 2000; Kalof et al, 2001; Lott et al, 1982; Reilly et al, 1986), others have reported more nuanced (McGinley et al, 2011), nonsignificant (Rospenda et al, 2000), or reversed (McMaster et al, 2002; Petersen and Hyde, 2009a,b; Wei and Chen, 2012) links between gender and SH. Still, studies have shown that some women are especially stressed or prone to self-blame by this form of victimization, which may have implications on their mental health (Goldstein et al, 2007; Lott et al, 1982; Petersen and Hyde, 2013a, 2013b; Till, 1980; Yoon et al, 2010), although few studies have attempted to understand these relations longitudinally in a young adult collegiate sample.…”

“…Studies using advanced longitudinal data analytic techniques have also established the existence of chronic SH in adult workers. Using latent growth mixture modeling, McGinley et al (2011) uncovered two trajectories of SH: infrequent and chronic. Workers experiencing chronic SH consistently experienced elevated levels of SH over 10 years, and these chronic victimization experiences in turn predicted a battery of alcohol use outcomes.…”

“…Thus, given the need for longitudinal studies using current advanced data analytic techniques to examine sexual harassment victimization (Neall and Tuckey, 2014; Petersen and Hyde, 2009a,b), and research demonstrating that more chronic experiences of SH are associated with poorer mental health and substance use outcomes (Chiodo et al, 2009; McGinley et al, 2011), the current study fills this gap in the research by using a person-centered approach in order to investigate heterogeneity in latent growth trajectories of SH victimization among college students.…”

“…Despite its prevalence, the fact that SH tends to be a chronic stressor when it occurs in the workplace (McGinley et al, 2011; Rospenda et al, 2000), and the greater health-harming effects of chronic versus more acute stressors in general (McEwen, 2004; Wheaton, 1997), there has been no longitudinal research on either the experience of SH over time or the impact of SH on mental health and substance use outcomes over time in college samples. Nor has there been research to determine which students may be at greater risk for experiencing chronic SH.…”