“It was only harmless banter!” The development and preliminary validation of the moral disengagement in sexual harassment scale

Abstract

Sexual harassment represents aggressive behavior that is often enacted instrumentally, in response to a threatened sense of masculinity and male identity. To date, however, theoretical attention to the social cognitive processes that regulate workplace harassment is scant. This article presents the development and preliminary validation of the Moral Disengagement in Sexual Harassment Scale

Sexism, rape myths and feminist identification explain gender differences in attitudes toward the #metoo social media campaign in two countries

“…Hostile sexism thus coheres with initial definitions of prejudice as antipathy (e.g., Allport, 1954), and can serve to justify men's exploitation of women as sexual objects. Indeed men are typically higher in hostile sexism than women (Glick et al, 2000), and hostile sexism is associated with a greater tolerance of sexual harassment, increased moral disengagement from sexual harassment, and even a higher proclivity to commit sexual assault (Abrams, Viki, Masser, & Bohner, 2003;Masser, Viki, & Power, 2006;Page, Pina, & Giner-Sorolla, 2016;Russell & Trigg, 2004). Glick and Fiske (1996) further introduced another form of sexism termed benevolent sexism, which involves an apparently positive, yet patronizing, stance toward women (i.e., that women need to be cherished and protected).…”

Dark Participation in Games

“…"anonymous and toxic gamer" collective identity (Tang and Fox, 2016). Some researchers have gone so far as to predict that the normalization of these behaviors within gamer culture could eventually shift and/or sustain cultural norms toward eventually seeing harassment in-games as harmless and acceptable (Ross and Weaver, 2012;Page et al, 2016).…”

Susceptibility to peer influence during middle school: Links with social support, peer harassment, and gender

“…Research has identified multiple social and cognitive factors that predict increased involvement in relational aggression (e.g., Boxer, Goldstein, Musher-Eizenman, Dubow, & Heretick, 2005;Martinelli, Ackermann, Bernhard, Freitag, & Schwenck, 2018), and to a lesser extent research has identified similar factors associated with sexual harassment (e.g., Page, Pina, & Giner-Sorolla, 2016). This being said, both the potential role of the peer context and the way in which the individual adolescent is orientated toward her/his peer relationships have been less extensively explored as predictors of these detrimental behaviors.…”