Research on Sexual Harassment: Lingering issues and Future Directions

This special issue makes some important theoretical strides and presents some provocative empirical advances. A recurring issue from the beginning of social science research on sexual harassment has been the nature of gender differences in the interpretation of social-sexual behavior at work or in academic settings. For example, in an often-cited survey of Los Angeles working adults, Gutek, Nakamura, Gahart, Handschumacher, and Russell (1980) reported that 65.5% of women thought that nonverbal social-sexual behavior at work (e.g., leering, making gestures, and brushing against constituted sexual harassment, but only 35% of men thought so. However, even in this survey, which was conducted during a time when public awareness of sexual harassment as a social problem was much lower than today, the majority of both men and women (81% and 88%, respectively) agreed that more severe behavior (e.g., sexual activity that is expected as a condition of employment) constitutes sexual harassment. After reviewing the research amassed over the 15 years since this groundbreaking effort, Gutek (this issue) now argues that the subjectivity of sexual harassment has been overemphasized. Across many studies, men and women evidence more agreement than disagreement about what is and what is not sexual harassment. Generally, characteristics of the behavior and situation are more important than rater characteristics in terms of their influence on perceptions or definitions of sexual harassment.     

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.     

Sexual harassment of university students

The sexual harassment of junior, senior, and graduate student women and men by male and female professors, graduate assistants, and staff was investigated to determine students' personal experiences in the classroom, outside the classroom, and in job-related settings. Usable survey responses were returned by 393 students, and incidents were detailed by 38 women and 9 men who noted their responses to the harassment and its effects. Attitudes toward and acceptance of sexually harassing behaviors were measured by a 10-item Tolerance for Sexual Harassment Inventory (TSHI). The frequency of initiation of sexual behaviors was also assessed. More women than men reported being sexually harassed. Male and female perceptions of classroom behaviors were in agreement for most items. Men and women differed significantly on the TSHI, with men more tolerant of sexual harassment than women, and highly significant age differences were found, indicating a greater acceptance of sexual harassment by younger students. There was little difference between male and female students in the frequency of their initiating sexual behaviors. The TSHI was assessed; reliability coefficients and a factor analysis are presented.This research was supported by a grant from the College of Arts and Sciences. We are grateful to Betty Jones and Joan Bentley for their secretarial assistance.     

A hierarchy of sexual harassment

Undergraduate students (143 males, 100 females) and working women (n = 48) read 18 scenarios depicting a wide range of types of sexual harassment behaviors and indicated whether they personally perceived each type of behavior to be sexual harassment. A hierarchy of harassment was developed on the basis of the subjects' perceptions. Potential differences between the perceptions of working women and female students and between the perceptions of male and female students were also investigated. Although a general consensus emerged regarding the relative perceived severity of the different types of sexual harassment, the percentage of working women who considered the behaviors to be sexual harassment was greater than the percentage of female students who considered them so.     

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.     

Context Effects on Women’s Perceptions of Stranger Harassment

The current research suggests that perceptions of stranger harassment experiences (i.e., experiencing unwanted sexual attention in public) are altered by the context of the situation. Study one investigated which elements of the situation (context) might be most influential in increasing fear and enjoyment of the catcalling experience. Attractiveness and age of the perpetrator, time of day, and whether the victim was alone or with friends were some of the categories that were selected as influencing both fear and enjoyment. Study two used a perspective taking methodology to ask women to predict a target character’s emotions, fears, and behaviors in harassment situations that varied by context. Results mirror the sexual harassment literature and suggest that harassment by younger and attractive men is viewed as less harassing. Exploratory analyses were also conducted with women’s personal experiences with stranger harassment as well as gender differences in perceptions. Context plays a vital role in interpretation of stranger harassment.     

A Cross-cultural Perspective on Judgments of Woman-to-woman Sexual Harassment: Does Sexual Orientation Matter?

We investigated perceptions between Brazilian and U.S. college students regarding a hypothetical case involving woman-to-woman sexual harassment in which the sexual orientation of both the target and the alleged harasser was experimentally manipulated. Thus, there were four different scenarios, which were randomly given to 952 college students (89% of whom reported to be White). We found that the scenario that depicted heterosexual woman-to-heterosexual woman sexual harassment was rated as the least likely to be sexual harassment, to need an investigation, and to be punishable than the other scenarios. Generally, Brazilians viewed the case as more likely to be sexual harassment and to need an investigation than did U.S. respondents. In the U.S., women perceived the case as more likely to be sexual harassment, to need an investigation, and to be punishable than men did; however, no such gender differences were found in Brazil. Lastly, hostile sexism and perceptions of woman-to-woman sexual harassment predicted respondents rating the case as sexual harassment and in need of an investigation.     

Some Effects of Brief Training Interventions on Perceptions of Sexual Harassment1

In 2 experiments, college undergraduates received brief sexual harassment training or were assigned to a control group; all participants then judged whether sexual harassment occurred in brief written scenarios which had been evaluated previously by experts. In the first study, training increased the tendency to perceive sexual harassment but did not enhance expertise. In the second experiment, training significantly increased perceptual expertise for men but not for women—thereby eliminating a gender difference which has been consistently reported in the sexual harassment literature. These are the first experimental demonstrations that training can influence perceptions of sexual harassment in a laboratory setting; whether training can measurably affect the perception, reporting, or incidence of sexual harassment in real life is not yet known.     

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.     

Students’ Perceptions of Sexual Harassment: Is It Harassment Only If the Offender Is a Man and the Victim Is a Woman?

The present study investigated 3 potential sources of variability in university students' perceptions of sexual harassment in hypothetical professor-student scenarios: raters'gender, gender of the professor and student, and rater' own sexual harassment. Participants were most likely to identify the interactions as harassment when they involved a male offender and a female victim. They were less likely to label the behaviors as harassment when they occurred between members of the same gender or between a female professor and a male student. Women were more open to viewing the scenarios as harassment and men were unlikely to view the interactions between a female professor and a male student as harassment. Personal history of sexual harassment did not influence participants' perceptions.     

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.     

The More You See It, the More You Know It: Memory Accessibility and Sexual Harassment Judgments

The influence of the availability of personally known and media known sexual harassment victims and harassers on perceptions of social sexual workplace conduct was examined. Male and female full-time workers evaluated two videotapes that depict sexual harassment in the workplace. Results indicated that perceived likelihood of harassment and discrimination increased as participants recalled more examples of harassment victims whom they personally knew. In some instances, recall of victims in the media had a similar influence. As predicted, the influence of availability was stronger for men than for women. Similar findings resulted from the analyses of the unwelcomeness, severity, and pervasiveness of the conduct; however, legal standard, gender, or case often moderated this relationship. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Perceptions of sexual harassment in an academic context

This study assessed the influence of two subject variables, gender and gender role, and one contextual variable, power of the harasser, on perceptions of sexual harassment in an academic context. Fifty-one white males and 73 white females evaluated a series of vignettes depicting a range of behavioral interactions. When the harasser was a higher power individual, vignettes were more likely to be viewed as examples of sexual harassment, male characters were perceived more negatively, and female characters were perceived more favorably. Female respondents rated the male characters less favorably than did the male respondents, although there were no gender differences in the number of vignettes interpreted as sexual harassment. Subtle differences in the way males and females interpret harassment behaviors are examined and discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, Massachusetts, April 1992.     

Age Comparisons in Workplace Sexual Harassment Perceptions

Few studies have systematically examined the influence of perceivers’ age on perceptions of sexual harassment. We sought to fill this gap, determine whether sexist attitudes mediate relations between age and sexual harassment perceptions, and whether relations between gender, sexist attitudes and perceptions are moderated by age. Results from an age-stratified sample of 965 students and staff employees at a US Midwestern university found a positive relationship between age and sexual harassment perceptions. Hostile sexism partially mediated this relationship, but age did not moderate correlations with gender or sexist attitudes. College-aged samples are less sensitive to harassment than older-aged samples, but the validity of other predictors of sexual harassment perceptions, such as gender and sexist attitudes, remains intact regardless of sample age.     

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.     

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.     

Assessing Perceptions of Sexual Harassment Behaviors in a Manufacturing Environment

This pilot study, conducted in a manufacturing plant, investigated employee perceptions of the behaviors of supervisors and co-workers that constitute quid pro quo and hostile work environment sexual harassment. Responses indicated that the majority of employees can accurately identify behaviors that are frequently associated with quid pro quo harassment, but cannot identify behaviors that are used to establish evidence of a hostile work environment. Comparisons of employees' scores demonstrated that male workers, relative to female workers, were more frequently accurate in identifying behaviors of both supervisors and co-workers that constitute sexual harassment. Perceptions of harassment varied according to job classification. Women in white-collar jobs were significantly more knowledgeable about what behaviors constitute sexual harassment than women in blue-collar jobs.     

Victim Resistance: Theory and Data on Understanding Perceptions of Sexual Harassment

This article reports on a study of perceptions of sexual harassment when a victim offers verbal resistance, and introduces the theoretical application of the notion that women sometimes use token resistance to sexual attention. Perceptions of sexual harassment were examined based on a vignette in which physical or verbal harassment and victim's facial expression were varied. Participants were 337 undergraduates (91% European American, 5% African American, 1% Hispanic American, 1% Asian American). Perceptions of sexual harassment were stronger for physical harassment than verbal harassment, except when the target smiled. Overall, women had stronger perceptions of harassment than did men. Also, a stronger belief in women's use of token resistance to sex was associated with weaker perceptions of sexual harassment. These findings suggest that a number of factors influence perceptions of harassment, even when a victim verbally resists.     

The Structure and Phenomenon of Sexual Harassment: Impact of Category of Sexually Harassing Behavior, Gender, and Hierarchical Level

Several researchers (Fitzgerald & Hesson-Mclnnes, 1989; Padgitt & Padgitt, 1986; Till, 1980) have suggested that the construct of sexual harassment is multidimensional and consists of five categories of behavior: gender harassment, seductive behavior, sexual bribery, sexual coercion, and sexual assault. Unfortunately, these categories have not been considered in studies investigating the nature and correlates of perceptions of sexual harassment. This paper presents a study that examined the impact of three factors–categories of sexually harassing behavior, gender of subjects, and hierarchical level of the initiator relative to the recipient–on subjects' perceptions of sexual harassment. The results indicated that gender and hierarchical level influenced the perceptions of two categories of sexual harassment–gender harassment and seductive behavior–but did not influence perceptions of sexual bribery, sexual coercion, and sexual assault. Implications for future research and organizational policies are discussed.     

Sexual harassment of women professors by students: Exploring the dynamics of power,authority, and gender in a university setting

Although much research on sexual harassment within the academy has been concerned with how prevalent this problem is, it continues to be very narrow in its scope by focusing almost entirely on the abuse directed toward subordinates. This study explores the sexual harassment of women professors by students to gain insight into how widespread the problem is, and to understand better how both gender and status define an individual's vulnerability to sexual harassment. Survey data from 208 female instructors employed at a major university revealed that women professors experience a variety of behaviors, mostly from male students, which range from sexist comments to sexual assault. Furthermore, most professors perceive such behaviors to be sexual harassment, despite the professor's formal power. Generally, women professors are able to deal effectively with these situations, usually by confronting the individual directly or trying to avoid the student, at least in relatively minor instances of sexual harassment.