The effects of prior workplace behavior on subsequent sexual harassment judgments.

Abstract

A dual processing model of sexual harassment judgments predicted that the behavior of a complainant in a prior case would influence evaluations in an unrelated subsequent case. In the first of two experimental scenarios depicting social-sexual conduct at work, the female complainant's conduct was manipulated to be aggressive, submissive, ambiguous, or neutral. Half of the participants were asked to reflect upon the first scenario after reading it and before answering responsibility questions. The other half simply reviewed the scenario and answered the questions. When the complainant acted aggressively, her behavior in the first scenario caused men who reflected on the fact pattern to find less evidence of harassment. Most interestingly, an aggressive complainant observed in the first scenario caused participants (especially women) to rate lower the likelihood that a neutral complainant in a second independent case was the victim of gender discrimination. Across cases, men found less evidence of harassment than did women.

Organizational Responses for Preventing and Stopping Sexual Harassment: Effective Deterrents or Continued Endurance?

“…The finding that women perceived all types of harassment as more serious than men runs counter to previous research which found that women tend to view more ambiguous, "hostile environment" types of harassment as more problematic than men, but that gender differences in perceptions disappear for clear cut cases of harassment, such as SC (e.g., Blumenthal 1998;O'Connor 1998;Rotundo et al 2001;Wiener et al 2004). However, it should be noted that other researchers have also found that women view SC as more problematic than men (O'Connor et al 2004).…”

“…This hypothesis was based on other studies which indicate that gender differences in harassment perceptions are significant for less extreme, more ambiguous "hostile environment" harassment, but are not significant for unambiguous, extreme forms of harassment (e.g., SC; e.g., Blumenthal 1998;O'Connor 1998;Rotundo et al 2001;Wiener et al 2004).…”

Does a Truck Driver See What a Nurse Sees? The Effects of Occupation Type on Perceptions of Sexual Harassment

“…Three major areas of workplace sexual harassment literature concern the prevalence of sexual harassment, the effects of sexual harassment in the workplace, and how people make sexual harassment judgments (Wiener et al 2004). In the current study, we sought to integrate two of these areas of research (i.e., prevalence and judgments of what constitutes harassment) by examining how the prevalence of sexual harassment in different occupation types influences workers' perceptions of sexual harassment.…”

“…In the current study, we sought to integrate two of these areas of research (i.e., prevalence and judgments of what constitutes harassment) by examining how the prevalence of sexual harassment in different occupation types influences workers' perceptions of sexual harassment. Our hypothesis arose from the expectation that workers become more or less sensitive to the plight of sexual harassment complainants depending upon the frequency with which sexual harassment occurs, and the opportunities workers have to observe this misconduct, in their work environments (Wiener et al 2004(Wiener et al , 2005. We hypothesized that the direction of the impact of prior experience observing harassment at work depends upon the gender balance in the work place.…”

“…People often make judgments based on highly available and well-rehearsed attitude structures. However, if conflicting belief structures are triggered (i.e., ambivalent sexism-the juxtaposition of hostile and benevolent sexism; Wiener et al 2002Wiener et al , 2004Wiener and Hurt 2000), or if the perceiver is held accountable for the final judgment, then the perceiver engages in a more effortful second process to reach a conclusion.…”