Perceptions of sexual harassment as a function of sex of rater and incident form and consequence

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in perceptions of two “severity dichotomies” present in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Guidelines on sexual harassment. Alale and female undergraduates (N = 198), from a predominately white midwestern university, were given one of four statements based on these guidelines, varying “form” (physical/verbal) and “consequence” (economic injury/hostile environment) of the behavior. Analysis of variance results showed females rated the incident as more definitely sexual harassment and as affecting perfonnance more than did males. Participants reading “economic injury” statements rated them as having more effect on the victim’s job status than did those reading “hostile environment” statements. A multivariate analysis of variance revealed significant “consequence” and “sex” effects on several factors: A significant three-way interaction showed that males rated statements less negatively than did females, especially when the statement described “physical” behavior with “hostile environment“ consequences. Cluster analysis results are also presented.     

The Effects of Training on Perceptions of Sexual Harassment Allegations

This study of 176 college juniors examined the effects of respondent gender and sexual harassment training on the perceptions of what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace. Variation in these perceptions, due to severity of the sexually oriented behavior, was also examined. Regardless of the subject's gender, individuals who 6 weeks earlier had seen a training film about sexual harassment rated severe sexually oriented work behaviors as more harassing than did individuals who had not seen the film. Additionally, males who had not seen the film rated ambiguous sexually oriented behaviors as less harassing than did males and females who had seen the film, and as less harassing than females who had not seen the film. Implications for the importance of training in addressing sexual harassment are discussed.     

Perceptions of Peer Sexual Harassment Among High School Students

Perceptions of peer social–sexual interactions were examined in a group of high school students (N=150). Participants were presented with six brief vignettes that described three types of sexual harassment between adolescent peers: physical, verbal/visual, and derogatory. Two vignettes were written for each type of behavior to reflect either a sexually explicit or implicit behavior. Participants responded to Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale and the Attitudes toward Women Scale for Adolescents (AWSA), and then rated the sexually harassing nature of the behaviors. Sexual harassment ratings varied as a function of the type of behavior and the sexual explicitness with which it was displayed. Although consensus was reached regarding the sexually harassing nature of both the sexually implicit and explicit physical forms of behaviors, only when the verbal/visual behavior was explicitly displayed was it perceived as sexually harassing. Interactions among self-esteem, gender attitudes, and type of behavior were also noted. Irrespective of the explicitness with which it was displayed, rater characteristics were influential for both the verbal/visual and derogatory forms of harassment.     

Organizational Responses for Preventing and Stopping Sexual Harassment: Effective Deterrents or Continued Endurance?

Survey data from a student population of experienced workers was used to examine perceptions of organizational responses to sexual harassment. Results revealed significant differences in the perceived seriousness of gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. Moreover, women viewed all three types of harassment as being significantly more serious than men. Terminating perpetrators’ employment, providing a verbal/written reprimand, and mandating an apology were rated as being the most common organizational responses to sexual harassment. A significant positive relationship existed between perceived organizational response severity and effectiveness in combating harassment. Results partially supported the notion that more severe responses are associated with greater effectiveness in communicating organizational intolerance of harassment. Contrary to hypotheses, ratings of organizational response effectiveness and appropriateness were not dependent upon harassment type. Further, organizational responses that involved transferring or reassigning victims were not viewed as less severe punishment for perpetrators than were most responses that involved the perpetrator directly.     

Attitudes Toward Sexual Harassment of Women in India1

A hypothetical incident of sexual harassment at the workplace was presented to 720 undergraduate students of the University of Bombay who attributed blame to the female victim of a superordinate male harasser and rated the appropriateness of her response to the harassment. The experiment had a 2 (Subject's Sex) × 3 (Victim's Marital Status: unmarried, married, or divorced) × 2 (Type of Harassment: verbal vs. physical) × 4 (Victim's Response: ignoring, complaining, scolding, or slapping) between-subjects factorial design with 15 subjects per cell. Male subjects blamed the victim of harassment more than female subjects, the unmarried and married victims were blamed more than the divorced victim, and the ignoring victim was blamed more than the complaining, scolding, and slapping victims. Perceived appropriateness of victim's response was higher with the divorced victim as compared to the unmarried and married victims, with physical harassment as compared to verbal harassment, and with the complaining, scolding, and slapping victims as compared to the ignoring victim. A three-way interaction on perceived appropriateness suggested that female subjects, as compared to male subjects, were more in favor of strong self-assertive action against harassment, but relatively less so in the case of the unmarried victim.     

THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT OF MEN?

Recently the focus of sexual harassment research on the harassment of women by men has been challenged. Treatments of sexual harassment of men, however, have generally ignored power differentials between the genders. Our analysis predicts that behaviors identified as harassing by men stem from negotiations of gender in the workplace that challenge male dominance, whereas behaviors experienced by women as sexually harassing reinforce female subordinance. Consistent with our predictions, results indicated the following: men are considerably less threatened than women are by behaviors that women have found harassing; men find sexual coercion the most threatening form of harassment; men as well as women sexually harass men; and men identify behaviors as harassing that have not been identified for women. Results also showed signs of backlash among men against organizational measures that address sexual harassment and discrimination against women. Implications for psychological and legal definitions of sexual harassment of men are discussed.     

Male and female responses to ambiguous instructor behaviors

Sexual harassment is widely prevalent within academic environments. Yet, many implicit harassing behaviors bear resemblance to instructor immediacy behaviors (i.e., behaviors intended to reduce relational distance). Since females are largely the targets of sexual harassment, it was proposed that they would rate immediacy behaviors to be less appropriate and would experience less comfort with these behaviors than their male counterparts. Three-hundred-fifty-four students (approximately 70% of whom were European-American) were asked to rate 19 ambiguous instructor behaviors for appropriateness. Participants were also asked to indicate how personally comfortable they would be with the described behaviors. Results indicated males rated 12 of 19 behaviors to be significantly more appropriate than females and indicated significantly greater comfort with 14 of 19 behaviors.The author would like to thank Dr. Paul Mongeau, Dr. Joseph Walther, and Jan Toth for assistance with this article. He would also like to thank the department chairs and instructors at DePaul University for their assistance in data collection.     

Poisoned Waters: Sexual Harassment and the College Climate

This study of 369 undergraduate students (59%female and 41% male, 4.7% African-American, 2%Latino/a-American, 3.6% International, and 88%White-American) found that both women and men weresexually harassed by faculty and other students with a similarlyhigh frequency. More subtle forms of sexually harassingbehaviors were experienced than were the more severebehaviors from both faculty and students. A greater tolerance for sexually harassing behaviors fromfaculty than peers was found. While more women than menused the label sexual harassment, few students of eithergender who experienced specific harassing behaviors said they had experiencedinappropriate behavior, and of those who said they hadexperienced inappropriate behavior, a very lowpercentage said they had experienced sexual harassment.It is hypothesized that the frequency of these behaviors is partlyresponsible for the lack of labeling.     

Perception Differences in Ambiguous Forms of Workplace Sexual Harassment: A Comparison between the United States and Turkey

Certain social–sexual behaviors that could be potentially encountered in workplaces are ambiguous in nature and perceiving them as sexual harassment can depend on the culture. With an aim to delineate the overlap and distinctions of sexual harassment perceptions of such behaviors across samples of women university students from Turkey (TR, N = 215) and the United States (US, N = 209), measurement invariance and latent mean differences in perceiving three ambiguous forms; sexist hostility, sexual hostility, and insinuation-of-interest, were examined. It was hypothesized that the US sample would perceive sexist hostility more sexually harassing as sexist workplace discriminatory practices are emphasized as a form of sexual harassment, and that the TR sample would perceive sexual hostility and insinuation-of-interest as more sexually harassing as women in TR operate in a conservative context. Despite similarities in rank ordering, US participants perceived sexist hostility more sexually harassing; insinuation-of-interest and sexual hostility less sexually harassing than Turkish participants, supporting all three hypotheses. There are implications of differing perceptions across cultures for organizations in terms of disseminating awareness via training programs about the forms of sexual harassment (SH) in a local context and for taking account of local findings in shaping the labor code of countries in relation to SH.     

Drawing the line: How the workplace shapes the naming of sexual harassment

Although sexual harassment naming – the process by which individuals identify and label experiences as sexual harassment – is key to tackling the problem of workplace sexual harassment, extant research focused on individual differences has explained a limited amount of variance in individuals’ propensity to name. We push this research in a new direction, drawing on institutional theory and strategic human resource management to identify workplace contextual factors that influence individuals’ propensity to name sexual harassment. Surveying 408 employed adults, we find that current employment in an industry with a high prevalence of sexual harassment reduces individuals’ likelihood of identifying scenarios as sexual harassment. Further, prior work experience in highly sexually harassing industries has a lasting negative effect on individuals’ propensity to name. In contrast, we show that individuals’ propensity to identify sexual harassment is greater when they perceive that their organization has implemented more HR practices supporting a climate for naming and that these HR practices can actually reduce the negative effect of current employment in a highly sexually harassing industry. Critically, by demonstrating that changing industry norms or adopting specific HR practices can shift individual naming of sexual harassment, we offer new avenues for sexual harassment prevention.     

Women's and Men's Reactions to Man-to-Man Sexual Harassment: Does the Sexual Orientation of the Victim Matter?

We manipulated the sexual orientation of the victim in a hypothetical case to address 3 key questions: Is it harassment, does the case need to be investigated further, and is the harasser's behavior punishable? Our sample comprised 433 undergraduates (91.5% of whom were White). We hypothesized that women would rate the case as more sexually harassing, as needing further investigation, and as more punishable than men would. We also hypothesized that the sexual orientation of the victim would affect perceptions of the case; specifically, students would significantly rate the incident as more harassing, as needing further investigation, and would recommend more punishment when the victim was homosexual rather than heterosexual. We hypothesized that female respondents would perceive more categories of inappropriate behaviors perpetrated by men on other men as constituting sexual harassment than would male respondents. Furthermore, we hypothesized that lewd comments and enforcement of the traditional masculine gender role would predict responses to the 3 key questions asked about the case. With the exception of recommending greater punishment when the victim was homosexual rather than heterosexual, all hypotheses were supported.     

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Exploring the Effects of Attractiveness on Perception of Harassment

This study was designed to explore the effect of attractiveness on perceptions of sexual harassment. Male and female college students (N = 150) rated four scenarios depicting ambiguous incidents of sexual harassment, each paired with photos of a male boss and a female secretary. Male and female attractiveness was varied in a 2 × 2 factorial design. Participants were asked to rate each photo on a series of traits before making harassment judgments. Overall, females perceived more harassment. The behavior of attractive males was less likely to be seen as harassing. Attractive females were more likely to be seen as harassed, especially when the potential harasser was unattractive. The possible mechanisms underlying the effects of attractiveness were explored with the results supporting a direct effect of stereotypes over a mediating role for implicit personality theories.     

Sexual Harassment: Prevalence,Outcomes, and Gender Differences Assessed by Three Different Estimation Methods

This study investigates gender differences in prevalence and effects of sexual harassment using three different estimation methods. In a representative sample of 2,349 Norwegian employees, 1.1% self-labeled as targets of sexual harassment, whereas 18.4% reported exposure to sexually harassing behaviors during the last six months. When employing latent class cluster analysis as a method for estimating prevalence of sexual harassment, 2.2% could be classified as targets of frequent harassment and 19.1% could be classified as targets of unwanted sexual attention. Although more women than men self-labeled as targets of sexual harassment, men reported the same number of sexually harassing behaviors as women. Sexual harassment was found to be significantly related to mental health problems and low job satisfaction among men and women.     

Gender differences in evaluating social-sexual conduct in the workplace

Qualitative interviews exploring gender differences in perceptions of sexual harassment were conducted with 100 full-time St. Louis area employees. Women more than men reported that telling dirty/sexual jokes was a non-harassing behavior, qualified behaviors as harassing when they happened in the workplace, and considered behaviors as non-harassing when the man's intentions were not harmful. Men more than women reported that requesting a date was a non-harassing behavior, qualified behaviors as harassing when the woman did not welcome the behavior, and considered behaviors as non-harassing when they did not violate workplace norms. Logistic regression analysis predicted the respondent gender with 86% accuracy. Finally, concept mapping suggested that when women think about harassers they are concerned with power and social aptitude, while men seem to be more concerned about the responsibility and psychological adjustment of perpetrators of sexual harassment. When women think about victims of harassment they are concerned with a woman's assertiveness and work effectiveness, while men are more concerned with the psychological state of the woman and how provocative she is when they think about victims of sexual harassment.     

The influence of individual characteristics and severity of harassing behavior on reactions to sexual harassment

Differences in reactions to 18 scenarios depicting potentially sexually harassing situations were studied as a function of harassment severity and individual level factors. The scenarios illustrate a continuum of behavior, with some situations depicting overt sexual harassment and others portraying more innocuous behaviors. The individuals' reactions were strongly influenced by the perceived severity of the incidents. Reactions were influenced to a lesser extent by the individual level factors of gender, attitudes toward women, religiosity, and locus of control. Among these factors, gender had the strongest effect on reaction types. Findings indicate that harassment severity and individual level factors may combine to influence reactions to sexual harassment.The authors would like to thank Barbara Gutek and Gary Powell for their comments on an early draft of this paper.     

Sexist language and person perception: Evaluation of candidates from newspaper articles

Use of sexist language significantly affects the evaluation and perception of candidates for office. Simulated newspaper articles describing a candidate were presented to subjects who rated candidates on evaluation and gender-stereotyping measures. Variables of degree of linguistic sexism, stimulus person sex, gender appropriateness of elective office, and subject sex were manipulated in a 2×2×3×2 factorial design. A significant three-way evaluation interaction indicated that linguistic sexism causes women to be negatively evaluated when seeking a “masculine” or “neutral” office. A significant two-way stereotype interaction suggested that linguistic sexism made more salient the gender appropriateness of the offices — candidates running for the “masculine” offices were perceived as more “masculine,” and candidates for the “feminine” offices as more “feminine.”     

Stranger Danger: The Role of Perpetrator and Context in Moderating Reactions to Sexual Harassment

The majority of research on sexual harassment focuses on achievement contexts where the perpetrator of the harassment is known to the victim. More recent work has begun to explore sexual harassment perpetrated by strangers in public places. The current work sought to bridge the gap between research on sexual harassment in achievement contexts and stranger harassment. In doing so, the current work manipulated factors related to three important distinctions between these topics: the relationship between the perpetrator and victim, the location, and the type of sexually harassing behavior. The current study provides evidence that stranger harassment elicits more negative reactions than harassment from a coworker. Additionally, harasser type interacted with harassment type, with situations involving strangers making physical contact eliciting the most negative reactions. Thus, the current work suggests a need for more research on stranger harassment, as well as on additional factors that may operate differently depending on harasser type.     

The Influence of Peer Interactions on Sexually Oriented Joke Telling

Although the negative consequences and prevalence rates of sexual imposition are widely known through self-report surveys, currently there are few laboratory paradigms to examine the determinants of this type of behavior, especially peer sexual harassment. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of two types of peer interactions on peer sexual harassment among college students using a laboratory paradigm of sexually oriented joke telling as an analogue of sexual harassment. Results from two different experiments revealed an effect of type of peer interaction on sexually oriented joke telling. In Experiment 1, male college students, who were exposed to a male peer who modeled sexually harassing behavior, subsequently told significantly more sexually oriented jokes to an unknown female peer than did male students exposed to a male peer who modeled nonsexually harassing behavior. In Experiment 2, male college students, who were exposed to a male peer who was seemingly sexist in his interaction with them, subsequently told significantly more sexually oriented jokes to an unknown female peer than did male students exposed to a male peer who was seemingly nonsexist in his interactions with them. These results suggest that peer interactions may serve as a disinhibiting situational factor of sexually harassing behaviors perpetrated by male college students on female peers. The results also provide further validity for the use of a laboratory paradigm for the study of peer sexual harassment.     

Individual Differences in the Effectiveness of Sexual Harassment Awareness Training1

Little research has investigated the effectiveness of sexual harassment awareness training videos on potential harassers' knowledge, behavior, or attitudes. A laboratory study was conducted that assessed the effects of a sexual harassment awareness training video on several training outcomes: sexual harassment knowledge, touching behavior, and attitudes associated with the likelihood of harassing others. Participants' propensity to harass was measured prior to their participation in the study. Results indicated that video-based training increased knowledge acquisition and reduced the inappropriate behavior of men who had a high propensity to harass. However, the training did not influence participants' long-term attitudes associated with the propensity to harass others. The research and practical implications of the study results are discussed.