An Ecological Approach to Understanding Sexual Revictimization: Linking Personal, Interpersonal, and Sociocultural Factors and Processes

This article applies an ecological model to the problem of sexual revictimization to advance the understanding of how personal, interpersonal, and sociocultural factors contribute to child sexual abuse victims' increased risk of being sexually victimized later in life. This ecological model explores how sexual revictimization is multiply determined by factors related to the victim's personal history (e.g., traumatic sexualization), the relationship in which revictimization occurs (e.g., decreased ability to resist unwanted sexual advances), the community (e.g., lack of family support), and the larger culture (e.g., blaming the victim attitudes). This article represents a step toward integrating findings on sexual revictimization and providing directions for future empirical work.