Honoring accounts for sexual harassment: A factorial survey analysis

This study analyzes a factorial survey, incorporating vignettes about student-to-student sexual harassment, completed by undergraduates at a small liberal arts college. As in previous studies, perceived seriousness levels for such incidents are shown to depend primarily on the perpetrator's behavior. However, perceived seriousness also depends strongly on the accounts offered by the perpetrator for his behavior and to a lesser extent on verbal reactions of the female victim. Furthermore, some types of accounts reduce the perceived seriousness of the behavior, while others increase it. Male and female respondents differ in their overall means, but do not differ significantly in the factors that influence perceived seriousness. Some implications of these results for the study of sexual harassment and of accounts are noted.