Adolescence is a developmental period in which disordered eating and negative body image are highly prevalent, yet their risk factors are insufficiently understood and targeted. Despite research ...implicating both teasing and bullying victimization in the development of eating disorders, these strands of research are yet to be integrated. This systematic review hence aimed to identify whether teasing and bullying victimization are associated with greater risk of eating disorders and body image disturbance for adolescents. Systematic searches of PsycINFO and PubMed databases identified 79 papers that included quantitative analyses of the relationship between weight-related or nonspecific teasing or bullying victimization and disordered eating or body image disturbance. Overall, studies indicated that adolescents who are teased or bullied are more likely to experience disordered eating and negative body image compared to nonvictimized adolescents. This was more consistently observed in cross-sectional studies than in longitudinal findings. We identify several methodological limitations of the literature, including the infrequent consideration of potential mediating and moderating variables. Finally, we outline future directions such as temporal sequencing of the complex interrelationships among teasing and bullying, disordered eating, and body image disturbance in adolescents.
The underreporting of sexual assault is well known to researchers, practitioners, and victims. When victims do report, their complaints are unlikely to end in arrest or prosecution. Existing research ...on police discretion suggests that the police decision to arrest for sexual assault offenses can be influenced by a variety of legal and extra-legal factors particularly challenges to victim credibility. Although extant literature examines the effects of individual behaviors on police outcomes, less is known about how the accumulation of these behaviors, attributions, and characteristics affects police decision making. Using data collected from the Los Angeles Police Department and Sheriff’s Department, we examine one police decision point—the arrest to fill this gap in the literature. First, we examine the extent to which the effects of potential challenges to victim credibility, based on victim characteristics and behaviors, influence the arrest decision, and next, how these predictors vary across circumstances. Specifically, we examine how factors that challenge victim credibility affect the likelihood of arrest in sexual assault cases where the victim and offender are strangers, acquaintances, and intimate partners.
Although the tendency to ruminate is related to the frequency of intimate partner violent (IPV) perpetration, it is unclear how IPV men react emotionally and physiologically during angry rumination. ...This study is the first to experimentally manipulate rumination and distraction with violent men. Using the rumination and distraction paradigm developed by Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow, IPV (N = 87) and nonviolent (NV; N = 30) men underwent an anger induction and then were randomly assigned to either ruminate or distract. IPV men were hypothesized to experience increased effects of rumination compared to NV men. As predicted, the results demonstrate an increase in heart rate from baseline to postrumination. No change in physiological arousal was observed in the distraction condition over time. Surprisingly, no difference state anger was found between IPV and NV men, and both conditions resulted in an increase in state anger. Implications for battering interventions suggest that distraction strategies, such as taking a time-out, are not sufficient to decrease physiological arousal. Intervention strategies that address mindfulness, physiological soothing, distorted cognitions, and rumination may be more powerful in decreasing negative physiological arousal among IPV men.
The study of bullying in adolescence has received increased attention over the past several decades. A growing body of research highlights the role of forgiveness and its association with aggression. ...In this article, we systematically review published studies on the association among online and traditional bullying and forgiveness in adolescents. Systematic searches were conducted in PsycINFO, MEDLINE, PsycArticles, and Scopus databases. From a total of 1,093 studies, 637 were nonduplicated studies and 18 were eventually included. Together, these studies provided evidence that forgiveness and bullying behaviors are negatively related: Adolescents with higher forgiveness levels bully less. Similarly, forgiveness is negatively related to victimization: Adolescents with higher forgiveness show less victimization. Unforgiveness was positively related to traditional and online bullying. This relationship appears to be consistent beyond types of bullying, certain background characteristics, and forgiveness measures. These findings are discussed, and clinical implications and guidelines for future research are presented.
We examined the role of sexting coercion as a component of the intimate partner abuse (IPA) construct among young adults to determine whether sexting coercion would emerge alongside other forms of ...partner aggression as a cumulative risk factor for psychological, sexual, and attachment problems. In a sample of 885 undergraduates (301 men and 584 women), 40% had experienced some type of coercion. Although there was some overlap between sexual coercion and sexting coercion (21% of participants had experienced both), some individuals had experienced only sexting coercion (8%) and some only sexual coercion (11%). Women were more likely than men to be coerced into sexting. Both sexting coercion and sexual coercion were significantly and independently related to negative mental health symptoms, sexual problems, and attachment dysfunction, and, notably, sexting coercion was found to be a cumulative risk factor for nearly all of these negative effects. These data support the idea that digital sexual victimization is a new component of IPA polyvictimization, potentially increasing the negative effects experienced by victims of multiple forms of partner aggression.
Incarcerated women evidence high rates of both interpersonal trauma and mental illness. In particular, the rates of sexual violence victimization are so high that some researchers have suggested that ...sexual abuse may be a pathway to prison for women, likely through the development of mental illness, including substance abuse. This review article summarizes the literature on sexual victimization (n = 32 articles; 28 independent studies) and mental illness (n = 11 articles; 8 independent studies) prevalence among samples of incarcerated women (Ns ≥ 100) in context of methodological choices within included articles. Best estimates for sexual victimization from studies using established survey methods were as follows: 50–66% for child sexual abuse, 28–68% for adult sexual abuse, and 56–82% for lifetime sexual assault. Although data directly comparing prevalence of sexual victimization among incarcerated women to prevalence for other groups are limited, the existing data indicate that incarcerated women have significantly greater exposure than incarcerated men and community samples of women. Moreover, compared to findings from the National Comorbidity Survey-Replication, incarcerated women evidence greater prevalence of most lifetime and current mental illnesses, especially depressive disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance use disorders. Surprisingly, only two independent studies have investigated the overlap between sexual victimization and mental illness in samples of incarcerated women. Both studies found disproportionally high rates of mental illness among victims of sexual violence. Suggestions and implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a significant violation of human rights, requiring specific understanding of how individuals heal and recover after these experiences. This article reports on findings ...of a qualitative metasynthesis that examined the nature of healing after GBV through the perspectives of female-identifying survivors. Empirical studies were identified by a search of peer-reviewed articles via electronic databases. Studies were included for review if they were available in the English language, reported on qualitative studies that directly engaged female-identifying survivors of GBV, and were aiming to understand the GBV healing journey, process, or goals. After our initial search, 1,107 articles were reviewed by title and abstract and 47 articles were reviewed for full text. Twenty-six peer-reviewed articles were included for the review and were analyzed using meta-ethnography. Key findings included the recovery journey as a nonlinear, iterative experience that requires active engagement and patience. Healing was composed of (1) trauma processing and reexamination, (2) managing negative states, (3) rebuilding the self, (4) connecting with others, and (5) regaining hope and power. “Shifts” or “turning points” are also mentioned which catalyzed healing prioritization. This article aggregates and examines the scientific literature to date on GBV healing and provides articulation of the limitations, gaps in evidence, and areas for intervention. The article considers implications for future research, policy, and practice and, in particular, focuses our attention on the need to expand our knowledge of alternative recovery pathways and mechanisms for healing.
We developed a set of risk ratios for the Violence Risk Appraisal Guide—Revised (VRAG-R) to broaden the range of risk communication options available when using this tool and to provide information ...needed for future efforts to apply The Council of State Governments Justice Center’s standardized five-level risk framework to the scale. A slightly reduced version of the VRAG-R normative data set was used for the analyses (N = 1,238). Contrary to previous research developing risk ratios, logistic regression provided a more accurate estimate of observed violent recidivism rates than Cox regression for both total VRAG-R scores and VRAG-R decile bins. Further analyses indicated the relationship between the VRAG-R and violent recidivism was consistent over a 15-year follow-up period. Due to the difficulties with interpreting odds ratios, the final risk ratios were computed using rate ratios derived from a logistic regression model using a 5-year fixed follow-up period. These risk ratios, and templates for how the ratios might be used in an assessment report, are presented in the appendices.
Sextortion occurs when an individual threatens to distribute a victim’s intimate images, videos, or information unless they comply with the perpetrator’s demands. In financially motivated sextortion, ...these demands include payment of a ransom. Despite global increases in financially motivated sextortion victimization, there is limited research on the psychological impacts of this type of victimization. Leveraging 332 threads (3,276 posts) from a popular sextortion support forum, the purpose of this research was to use inductive qualitative methods to understand how financially motivated sextortion impacts victims’ mental well-being, their online engagement, and how they process and deal with these impacts. The results illustrate four main concepts: short-term impacts, long-term impacts, coping strategies, and getting better over time. Short-term impacts included worry, stress, anxiety, self-blame, and somatic symptoms of stress. Long-term impacts included enduring episodes of anxiety. Some sources of coping reported by forum users were to confide in a trusted friend, stay offline, or seek professional mental health care. Despite these impacts, many forum members expressed a sense that their anxiety and distress “get better overtime,” a concept that was assisted through active coping strategies.
Sexual violence (SV) is an urgent public health issue that is common and has lifelong effects on health. Previous scholarship has documented the association of SV victimization with numerous health ...conditions and impacts, but much of this past work has focused on negative health outcomes associated with child sexual abuse using non-nationally representative samples. This article used a nationally representative female sample to examine health conditions associated with any lifetime experience of rape. We also examined injury and health outcomes (e.g., fear, injury) resulting from any violence by a perpetrator of rape. About two in five rape victims (39.1%) reported injury (e.g., bruises, vaginal tears), and 12.3% reported a sexually transmitted disease as a result of the rape victimization. Approximately 71.3% of rape victims (an estimated 16.4 million women) experienced some form of impact as a result of violence by a rape perpetrator. Among U.S. women, the adjusted odds of experiencing asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, frequent headaches, chronic pain, difficulty sleeping, activity limitations, poor physical or mental health, and use of special equipment (e.g., wheelchair) were significantly higher for lifetime rape victims compared with non-victims. This article fills gaps in our understanding of health impacts associated with rape of women and is the only nationally representative source of this information to our knowledge. Primary prevention efforts in youth that seek to prevent the first occurrence of rape and other forms of SV may be most effective for reducing the long-term health effects of this violence.
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