Theories of human aggression can inform research, policy, and practice in organizations. One such theory, victim precipitation, originated in the field of criminology. According to this perspective, some victims invite abuse through their personalities, styles of speech or dress, actions, and even their inactions. That is, they are partly at fault for the wrongdoing of others. This notion is gaining purchase in industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology as an explanation for workplace mistreatment. The first half of our article provides an overview and critique of the victim precipitation hypothesis. After tracing its history, we review the flaws of victim precipitation as catalogued by scientists and practitioners over several decades. We also consider real-world implications of victim precipitation thinking, such as the exoneration of violent criminals. Confident that I-O can do better, the second half of this article highlights alternative frameworks for researching and redressing hostile work behavior. In addition, we discuss a broad analytic paradigm—perpetrator predation—as a way to understand workplace abuse without blaming the abused. We take the position that these alternative perspectives offer stronger, more practical, and more progressive explanations for workplace mistreatment. Victim precipitation, we conclude, is an archaic ideology. Criminologists have long since abandoned it, and so should we.

This project investigated the incidence, interplay, and impact of gender- and sexuality-based harassment, as experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) employees in higher education. Unlike much queer empirical research, participants in this study were residents of noncoastal regions of the U.S. that are predominantly White, rural, and conservative (i.e., "red states"). They completed surveys about their harassment experiences (gender harassment-sexist, gender harassment-policing, and heterosexist harassment), perceived support systems (from supervisors and organizations), and job attitudes (job burnout, job stress, and job satisfaction). Results showed that gender harassment-both sexist and policing subtypes-rarely occurred absent heterosexist harassment, and vice versa. Harassment severity (experiencing moderate to high levels of all three harassment types) was significantly associated with greater levels of job burnout (both disengagement and exhaustion) and job dissatisfaction. Even infrequent experiences of harassment related to large increases in the "threat" variety of job stress (i.e., sense of feeling hassled and overwhelmed on the job). Additionally, employees who perceived the lowest organizational support reported the most harassment. We interpret results in light of research on organizational behavior and LGBQ psychology. Moreover, we discuss our findings in the context of Title VII, currently interpreted to protect against harassment based on gender, sex, and sex stereotyping, but not sexual orientation. Our results can inform several possible avenues of expanding gay civil rights in employment: broadening judicial interpretations of Title VII, passing new legislation (e.g., the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA), and strengthening organizational supports and policies that protect against sexuality-based abuses.

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United States law recognizes the illegality of sex/gender stereotyping when it drives formal discrimination in employment, as in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins (1989). In the present study, we investigated whether such stereotyping—and attendant intolerance for counterstereotypicality—also breeds discrimination in the form of gender harassment. That is, we examined whether and how different components of gender counterstereotypicality combined to affect women’s risk of being targeted with harassment. Using a sample of 425 working women, we tested how deviations from stereotypical femininity—masculine appearance, masculine-typed behaviors (aggression and self-reliance), and work in a masculine context—related to women’s experiences of gender harassment (specifically, sexist remarks and gender policing). We found that women were caught in a “catch-22:” Professional success in many highly compensated fields requires stereotypically masculine behavior and appearance, but those same attributes increased women’s harassment risk. Taken together, our findings carry methodological, practical, and legal implications. If working women are penalized for their gender deviance through different forms of gender harassment, particularly in certain work domains, this may fuel gender discrepancies in particular fields. There could be a cumulative impact on women throughout their careers, from hiring to evaluation to advancement up the ranks. Methodologically, this study can expand our understandings of how to operationalize gender role violation and parse apart different manifestations of workplace harassment. It can also inform debates about relationships between sex stereotyping, harassment, and the law.