Attributions of Responsibility in Cases of Sexual Harassment: The Person and the Situation¹

Abstract

When observers learn about a case of sexual harassment, it is common for them to assign responsibility to the victim and perpetrator. However, attributions of responsibility are complex judgments often based on variables beyond the case's details (e.g., attitudes). The present study examined how victim response, victim and perpetrator gender, and participant gender and gender-role attitudes influenced participants' attributions. Victim and perpetrator responsibility were measured before and after participants knew the victim's reaction in order to examine whether new information would alter participants' attributions. Consistent with previous research, gender differences were found for attributions and attitudes. Victim and perpetrator gender did not affect attributions. However, biases appeared in open-ended responses. Finally, only females made distinctions of responsibility across victim reaction condition.

Maternal Attachment and Television Viewing in Adolescents’ Sexual Socialization: Differential Associations Across Gender

“…Moreover, acceptance of the sexual double standard is expected to result in a climate of sexual objectification of the female body, which increases women's mental health risks such as sexual dysfunction and eating disorders (Frederickson and Roberts 1997). Finally, American research has suggested that males' recreational and gender stereotypical attitudes are related to misunderstandings of females' cues (Johnson et al 1991;Smirles 2004) leading to increased ambivalence in dating situations, which has been associated with an increased likelihood of sexual harassment (Krahé et al 2000).…”

Sexual Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Female Undergraduate Students in Wuhan, China: The Only-Child versus Students with Siblings

“…Strouse, et al found when mother attachment relationship is weak, girls are more vulnerable to the negative impact of the film, television in terms of sexual contents [39]. Mass media with the obvious gender bias often preached sexual tendencies from the position of the male sexual hedonism, which make inexperienced girls easily misunderstand [40], resulting in an contradictory mind when they interact with the opposite sex, which increases the likelihood of unwanted behavior [41].…”

Is that a “No”? The Interpretation of Responses to Unwanted Sexual Attention

“…Furthermore, responses to sexual harassment are often vague because the majority of victims do not respond directly by confronting the harasser (Gruber & Smith, 1995;Rudman, Borgida & Robertson, 1995). Although other researchers have examined observers' perceptions of sexual harassment behaviors, the perception of responses to sexual harassment has not been studied extensively (Smirles, 2004). Instead, responses to harassment have been studied mostly from the point of view of the victim (Cochran, Frazier, & Olson, 1997;Knapp, Faley, Ekeberg, & Dubois, 1997;Peirce, Rosen, & Hiller, 1997 The observer-based approach has often been applied to the interpretation of sexual harassment behaviors (e.g., Baird, Bensko, Bell, Viney, & Woody, 1995;Corr & Jackson, 2001;Fitzgerald & Ormerod, 1991).…”

“…Given those important functions, the observer becomes a major contributor to the construction of the meaning of sexual harassment (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Indeed, Smirles (2004) referred to "the importance of understanding how different groups of observers might judge the same alleged incident of sexual harassment differently" (p. 342).…”