Prospective Associations Among Relationship Abuse, Sexual Harassment, and Bullying

Article Critique Essay
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Sexual minority youth (SMY) face a significant risk of encountering abusive relationships in adolescence compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Despite this, there are significant research gaps concerning the factors contributing to the increased risk of experiencing abusive relationships. In the article "Prospective associations among relationship abuse, sexual harassment and bullying in a community sample of sexual minority and exclusively heterosexual youth," Hequembourg and colleagues investigated whether sexual harassment and bullying increased the potential of experiencing abusive relationships during adolescence compared to their heterosexual counterparts (Hequembourg et al., 2020). While this article indicated that the possibility of experiencing abusive relationships in adolescence increased due to SMY exposure to sexual harassment, bullying, and abusive relationships in their childhood compared to their heterosexual counterparts, there are limitations related to the theoretical framework, sample, and potential for bias.
The researchers sought to establish if peer victimization helps account for disparities in relationship abuse amongst SMY. In this context, a higher level of childhood victimization and abusive relationship during adolescence among SMY as opposed to their heterosexual counterparts was expected. It was established that SMY with a history of sexual abuse were likely to experience abusive relationships during adolescence over extended timescales. However, bully victimization was not linked to abusive relationships in later years. The selected article potentially connects the association between relationship abuse, sexual harassment, and bullying among sexual minorities, mainly heterosexual adolescents (Hequembourg et al., 2020). The authors delved into a longitudinal design to uncover these temporal relationships bringing to attention the increasing recognition of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Questioning) LGBTQ and youth's exclusive challenges. That being the baseline, the authors focused on rates of bullying, sexual harassment, and relationship abuse between the sexual minority youth (SMY) and heterosexual youth. The research problem was based on whether (Adolescent Relationship Abuse) ARA and SMY have unique and prospective experiences as heterosexual youth (Hequembourg et al., 2020).
Undeniably, the research methods employed in the article apply to such types of study. The incorporation of longitudinal design in the study allows for the effective assessment of progressive relationships between variables in the long run. For instance, using a community sample increases generalizability and external validity. The authors present a brief outline of using self-reports, making it easy and fast to design effective research questions. Notably, the author's use of publicly available data attracted a wide range of neighborhood adolescents regardless ...