Sexual harassment scripts: A means to understanding a phenomenon

Sex Roles, 1992

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 '~ex" 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.

Journal of Social Issues, 1995

This article critically reviews social science research relevant to lay people defining sexual harassment, including research on what behaviors are considered harassing, the effects of harasser status on perceptions of harassment, and gender differences in definitions of sexual harassment. Included in this review are data from a previously unpublished study of definitions of sexual harassment among a sample of over 4000 students, faculty, and staff at the University of Minnesota. Our review suggests that there is now quite a bit of lay consensus regarding which categories of behaviors are generally considered harassing. Studies on both the effects of harasser status and gender differences in perceptions of harassing behaviors are less consistent. We conclude our review with several recommendations for increasing the external validity of this research. "Is it okay to ask a student for a date?" "Should I meet with employees alone in my office after hours?' "What kinds of jokes can I tell at work?" All of these questions reflect present confusion regarding appropriate conduct in the workplace and in the classroom. They also reflect a broader question: What exactly is sexual harassment? In order to understand-and ultimately eliminate-sexual harassment we must have a common definition of what it is. One definition is contained in guidelines developed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1980. The EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination (and thereby sexual harassment) in the workplace. I The EEOC guidelines describe two forms of sexual harassment: quid pro quo

Law and Human Behavior, 2004

In two decades of research on sexual harassment, one finding that appears repeatedly is that gender of the rater influences judgments about sexual harassment such that women are more likely than men to label behavior as sexual harassment. Yet, sexual harassment judgments are complex, particularly in situations that culminate in legal proceedings. And, this one variable, gender, may have been overemphasized to the exclusion of other situational and rater characteristic variables. Moreover, why do gender differences appear? As work by Wiener and his colleagues have done (R. L. study attempts to look beyond gender to answer this question. In the studies reported here, raters (undergraduates and community adults), either read a written scenario or viewed a videotaped reenactment of a sexual harassment trial. The nature of the work environment was manipulated to see what, if any, effect the context would have on gender effects. Additionally, a number of rater characteristics beyond gender were measured, including ambivalent sexism attitudes of the raters, their judgments of complainant credibility, and self-referencing that might help explain rater judgments. Respondent gender, work environment, and community vs. student sample differences produced reliable differences in sexual harassment ratings in both the written and video trial versions of the study. The gender and sample differences in the sexual harassment ratings, however, are explained by a model which incorporates hostile sexism, perceptions of the complainant's credibility, and raters' own ability to put themselves in the complainant's position (self-referencing).

Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2005

The effects of participants’ gender and propensity to sexually harass were examined in a sexual harassment case in which the gender of the harassers and victim were manipulated systematically. Male and female participants scoring either high or low on the Likelihood to Sexually Harass (LSH) scale (Pryor, 1987) reviewed an ostensibly real hostile work environment case and made judgments about the case. When participants were the same gender as the victim, individual differences in LSH failed to influence their judgments. When the participants’ gender was the opposite of the victim's, those low in LSH perceived the behaviors as more likely to be sexual harassment than those high in LSH. These results are discussed and their implications considered.

Journal of Social Issues, 1995

, this model suggests that sexually harassing behavior may be predicted from an analysis of social situational and person factors. Sexual harassment is a behavior that some people do some of the time. The social norms in specific organizational settings may "permit" sexual harassment. Certain individuals may possess proclivities for sexual harassment. When individuals with a proclivity for sexual harassment are placed in social situations that permit or accept this sort of behavior, the behavior is most likely to occur. From a review of research relating social norms in organizational settings and sexual harassment incidence, women are found more likely to experience sexual harassment in workplaces where men perceive the social norms as permitting such behavior. Research on sexual harassment proclivities in men also is reviewed. A profile of men who are high in the likelihood to sexually harass (LSH) is developed through an examination of correlations between the LSH scale and ( I ) standard selj-report inventories, (2) social cognitive measures, and (3) social behaviors measured in laboratory settings. Possible applications of the Person X Situation analysis to direrent forms of sexual harassment are discussed. Social scientific research on sexual harassment is still in its infancy. The first generation of research on sexual harassment concentrated mainly upon ( 1) assessing interpretationldefinition issues (

Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1993

Sexual harassment proclivities in both men and women were studied in 222 college students. They were administered the newly developed Sexual Harassment Proclivities Scale and their scores were compared with a large number of measures, including sex-role stereotyping, adversarial sexual beliefs, sexual conservatism, acceptance of interpersonal violence, rape myth acceptance, likelihood of rape, acceptance of feminism, empathetic concern, sexual activity, and sexual exploitation. Most of the results were statistically significant for both males and females, although correlations tended to be higher for males. A factor analysis of the Sexual Harassment Proclivities Scale yielded a one-factor solution for both men and women, supporting the view that the scale measures likelihood of sexual harassment.

Employee Responsibilities and Rights …, 1997

Subjects were presented with multiple training methods to determine their effect on sensitivity to possible sexual harassment situations. The training methods used were case analyses, commercially produced videotape episodes, and an open-ended questionnaire. Subjects were found to be more sensitive to incidents of possible sexual harassment when videotape episodes were combined with case analysis. The pattern of gender differences supported previous research showing perceptual differences in ambiguous cases. Research-based suggestions for sexual harassment training programs are offered.

Sex Roles, 1992

Social exchange theory was used to explain sexual harassment interactions in terms of perceived or actual inequities in incurred costs or rewards between targets and perpetrators. A factorial experiment was conducted in which the effects of severity of harassment, target response, target gender, and rater gender on perceptions of harassment, perpetrator appropriateness and target appropriateness and suggested responses to harassment were examined. Ninety-four male and 116 female students from two eastern universities served as subjects. The sample was approximately 90% Caucasian and was composed of traditional (18-22-year-old) undergraduates. Results indicated that all independent variables affected perceptions of and responses to sexual harassment situations.

Sexual harassment represents one of the most prevalent forms of dysfunctional behavior observed in the workplace today. More studies need to be done not only for understanding the issues, predictors and consequences of sexual harassment but also to identify related theories in understanding the sexual discrimination at the workplaces. More local empirical evidences are needed to understand employees’ level of awareness towards sexual harassment and their experience of sexual harassment incidences at the workplace locally. It should also be noted that all companies should have their sexual harassment policy at the workplace. The sexual harassment policy should be distributed to all organizational members as to ensure the organizational members will aware that there is a zero tolerance towards harassing behavior. However, the tolerance towards sexual harassment also depends to the individual understanding. As such, this study will discuss in details the definition, predictors and consequences of sexual harassment in the workplace in order to equip women the knowledge on the nature of sexual harassment.