Himpathy and status: Attitudes to social hierarchy predict reactions to sexual harassment

Abstract

In three studies, we tested whether hierarchical preferences could explain differences in punishment recommendations for sexual harassment. Building on research that suggests punishment is used to regulate social hierarchies, we argue that individuals who are motivated to maintain existing hierarchies will treat male perpetrators of sexual harassment with greater leniency, especially when judging perpetrators of high social status. Conversely, we predict that egalitarians—who are motivated to reduce group-based hierarchies—will judge male perpetrators more harshly, especially those of high social status. Given competing theories in the existing literature, we make no predictions about how perpetrator status will affect punishment recommendations overall. Supporting our hypotheses, we found that individuals high on gender system justification and social dominance orientation recommended more lenient punishments to perpetrators. Moreover, an integrative data analysis uncovered an interaction between social dominance orientation and perpetrator status. This interaction was primarily driven by egalitarians, who provided more lenient punishment recommendations to low status perpetrators when compared to high status perpetrators. Contrary to our predictions, we did not find strong evidence that individuals high on social dominance orientation provided harsher judgements to low status perpetrators. Nor did we find strong evidence for a main effect of perpetrator status on punishment recommendations. Taken together, these findings suggest that people punish sexual harassment to bolster or attenuate power structures. This is particularly true of egalitarians, whose emphasis on social equality leads them to judge high status perpetrators of sexual harassment with particular severity.