Complainant behavioral tone, ambivalent sexism, and perceptions of sexual harassment.

Abstract

Previous research has examined the impact of the law on decisions made about social sexual interactions in the workplace in the context of a variety of individual difference variables including gender of the observer and sexist attitudes, as well as situational factors including legal standard and prior exposure to aggressive and submissive complainants. The current study continued this line of inquiry by testing whether hostile or benevolent sexist attitudes behaved differently under manipulated exposure to aggressive and submissive complainants. Full-time workers watched 1 videotape in which aggressive, submissive, or neutral (i.e., businesslike) women complained that male coworkers sexually harassed them; then, participants viewed a second complainant who always acted in a neutral behavioral tone. In the first case, participants high in hostile sexism who took a reasonable person perspective (but not those with a reasonable woman point of view) and all men who viewed an aggressive complainant found less evidence of harassment. With the second set of allegations, female workers who were exposed to a submissive complainant in the first case found less evidence of harassment against the neutral complainant, suggesting that exposure to a submissive complainant triggered some type of victim blaming in female workers. Policy and training implications are discussed.

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

“…These actions are instrumental to the individual in creating a disparaging and humiliating climate for female workers who are perceived to violate traditional gender ideals and encroach on male territory (e.g., by being seen to take on a man's job). Moreover, our findings support extant research reporting that males high (versus low) in HS evaluate ambiguous social-sexual misconduct as less indicative of hostile work environment harassment (Wiener & Hurt, 2000;Wiener et al, 1997;Wiener et al, 2010). As BS encompasses attitudes toward women that are subjectively positive in tone and comparatively more chivalrous (albeit sexist in terms of viewing women in restricted social and economic roles) than HS, it is understandable that BS should correlate with the MDiSH at a smaller magnitude or indeed be unrelated.…”

“…Studies consistently document that men who are higher in HS (but not BS) evaluate ambiguous social-sexual misconduct as less indicative of hostile work environment harassment when using the "reasonable person" legal standard (see Wiener & Hurt, 2000;Wiener, Hurt, Russell, Mannen, & Gasper, 1997;Wiener et al, 2010). It has also been reported that HS (but not BS) positively predicts greater tolerance of sexual harassment (Russell & Trigg, 2004).…”

Institutional betrayal.

“…These environments may additionally harm individuals who report sexual harassment by devaluing their perceptions of their own traumatic experience. Legal research indicates that the culture of the workplace determines the norms of social sexual behavior against which complaints of sexual harassment are evaluated, rather than the strict legal standard set by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Wiener et al, 2010). As this example illustrates, when the focus is shifted from individual perpetrators to systemic issues-those that may facilitate interpersonal violence or complicate the aftermath-it becomes possible to focus less narrowly on the type of interpersonal violence perpetrated and recognize patterns across cases of institutional betrayal.…”

“…Yet institutions may serve as valuable resources for challenging these values. Research indicates that employee training that addresses workplace culture and sexist attitudes may reduce the sexism that fuels harassment or leads to the discounting of reports of harassment (Wiener et al, 2010). Industrial/organizational psychologists have already begun the work of providing necessary education through the American Psychological Association's Stress in the Workplace initiative.…”

¿Mito o realidad? Influencia de la ideología en la percepción social del acoso sexual

“…Por lo tanto, con este resultado se confirma lo apuntado en el primer estudio así como en anteriores investigaciones, destacando la influencia de los mitos y el sexismo a la hora de hacer atribuciones de culpa y responsabilidad en una situación de acoso sexual Wiener et al, 2010).…”