A typology of personal and environmental sexual harassment: Research and policy implications for the 1990s

Abstract

Most of the research conducted on sexual harassment over the last decade and a half has used categories that are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. This has created problems for researchers: it is difficult to compare results from one study to another, harassment types that have scholarly and legal-policy relevance are omitted, and the ability of researchers to inform legal and policy decisions is diminished as a result of these problems. A comprehensive categorization of harassment types that addresses these methodological problems is presented. Specifically, 11 specific types of harassment-4 types of Verbal Requests, 3 Verbal Remarks, and 4 Nonverbal Displays-are presented with examples from research and legal literatures. Recommendations for reconceptualizing research definitions of harassment as well as for diversifying the methodological approaches to the topic are made.

Pathways to false allegations of sexual harassment

“…This concept refers to court precedent and psychological research that partially determines the realm of sexual harassment by determining what is and is not harassment based on what a normal, 'reasonable' woman would find to be either innocuous or offensive. Clearly this is a contentious issue which goes beyond the scope of this paper; but, for our purposes we must remember that our current understanding of sexual harassment must take into account both societal norms and individual perceptions of harassment (see Gruber, 1992;Gruber, Smith, Kauppinen-Toropainen, & Stockdale, 1996;Fitzgerald, Swan & Magley, 1997).…”

Moral disengagement as a self-regulatory process in sexual harassment perpetration at work: A preliminary conceptualization

“…Indeed, it has been proposed that gender harassment is an expression of male hostility toward women as an outgroup (Pryor & Whalen, 1997) and its greater prevalence within traditionally masculine occupations, such as the military (e.g., Bastian, Lancaster, & Reyst, 1996) and police (e.g., Martin, 1990), may be due to the desire of certain men to assert their authority and keep women in subordinate positions (Gruber, 1992;Gruber & Bjorn, 1982). In fact, experimental research employing the computer harassment paradigm (DallÕAra & Maass, 1999;Galdi et al, 2013;Maass et al, 2003;Siebler, Sabelus, & Bohner, 2008) …”

Sexual Harassment in the Active-Duty Navy: Findings from the 1991 Navy-Wide Survey

“…There is no general agreement on what the categories of sexual harassment behaviors should be--they differ from survey to survey (Gruber, 1990;Fitzgerald, 1990). Furthermore, there is often widespread disagreement that all or some of the behaviors falling within a category constitute sexual harassment.…”

“…Reviews of the sexual harassment literature indicate that there is no single accepted definition of sexual harassment and no generally agreed upon method of assessing and calculating sexual harassment rates (Culbertson & Rosenfeld, 1993;Fitzgerald, 1990;Gruber, 1990Gruber, , 1992Terpstra & Baker, 1991). Gruber's (1992) review of sexual harassment surveys reported rates of 33-69% in the general population, 42-59% in the public sector, 36-75% in the private sector and 28-37% in the academic sector.…”

“…In addition, caution should be employed when comparing the results from sexual harassment surveys that do not use identical methodologies (Gruber, 1990(Gruber, , 1992. As Martindale (1990) states, "Although the term incidence has been used to refer to these kinds of percentages, it is incorrect to refer to self-report data from any survey of sexual harassment as incidence data, since the term incidence implies a level of measurement precision not currently attainable" (p. 10).…”