Considering her circumstances: How ethnicity and cultural relativist arguments affect sexual harassment judgments by undergraduate and community mock jurors

Abstract

Most research on sexual harassment has involved undergraduate students and European Americans, whose perspectives may not be representative of the broader population. This study investigated whether judgments of a sexual harassment trial vary by plaintiff ethnicity (European American or Latin American), type of sample (undergraduates or community members) and mock juror ethnicity (European American or Latin American). We also tested the effects of a cultural relativist argument about Latin American cultural values influencing the plaintiff. Results indicated that community and Latin American mock jurors rendered more pro-plaintiff verdicts, particularly when the case did not include a cultural relativist argument. Although the cultural relativist argument did not affect undergraduates' judgments, it caused a backlash among community members, leading to more pro-defendant verdicts. Judgments across type of sample and mock juror ethnicity were partially mediated by self-referencing and hostile sexism; affiliation with Latin American culture also predicted judgments of the Latina American plaintiff.

Sexual harassment: In the eye of the beholder?

“…This research has found that the dimensions of power distance, collectivism, and masculinity are the most likely to result in differences in perceptions of sexual harassment (Mishra & Davison, 2020). Cultural values and religious views associated with race/ethnicity can influence whether someone views a situation as sexual harassment or not (Schwartz & Hunt, 2011).…”

“…There is not a lot of research on perceptions of sexual harassment of people in different racial and ethnic groups. Indeed, most research on sexual harassment has involved European Americans (Schwartz & Hunt, 2011), or has not specifically examined race/ethnicity as a factor in perceptions of harassment. Cassino and Besen-Cassino Copyright © Institute of Behavioral and Applied Management.…”

Sexual harassment

“…Framing: At the beginning of the process of a psychiatric-forensic assessment it's necessary to set a sociocultural framing of the person being evaluated, because sexual harassment is a complex and multi-faceted phenomenon (11). This aspect is very important due to studies that point out the existence of nonconsensual sexual behaviors accepted in some cultures and not others (12) and to make visible sexual harassment in some societies or special populations is still viewed as a taboo (11), that is why in these cases it is necessary to use a different approach, even get support from social anthropology. Given that is expected that sexual harassment threatens or violates the human dignity, it's important to be careful with the approach made to victims of this type of harassment, since through the verbal or physical approach it's possible to recreate the harassment phenomenon and, in consequence, it's necessary to be careful with the verbal and nonverbal language that is used when performing a psychiatric-forensic assessment.…”

Jury simulation goals.

“…however, other recent studies have suggested that the mock jury population may interact with other experimental variables (for a review, see Wiener et al, 2011). For example, several studies published in a special issue of Behavioral Sciences and the Law demonstrated that when damage awards were a dependent variable, the jury sample (student vs. nonstudent) interacted with such variables as the type of damages in a medical malpractice case (punitive vs. compensatory; Fox, Wingrove, & Pfeifer, 2011) and ethnicity in a title VII discrimination case (Schwartz & hunt, 2011). more significantly, there are few available data about how juror type interacts with a variety of other variables, including an important but commonly neglected variable: jury deliberation (nuñez, mcCrea, & Culhane, 2011).…”