Assessing men's reactions to workplace sexual harassment stimuli

Abstract

The Natural/Biological, Organizational, Sociocultural, and, Sex-Role Spillover models of sexual harassment were applied in assessing the negative effects of sexual harassment on male workers who observe sexually harassing behavior. Negative affective (anxiety and hostility), cognitive (attributions of responsibility) and behavioral (assertiveness and passivity) consequences of sexual harassment on male workers from four urban business were examined. Forty volunteers received two audio simulations of sexual harassment, which were counterbalanced to control order effects. One simulation depicted direct sexual harassment (a sexual proposition) and the second simulation depicted indirect sexual harassment (sexual joking). Twenty men listened to both simulations while imagining the initiator of harassment to be their boss/supervisor. The other twenty men listened to both simulations while imagining a coworker as the initiator. Participants with egalitarian attitudes toward women attributed blame to the workplace for the occurrence of sexual joking. These results did not support the Biological and Organizational models; however, some support was found for the Sociological and Sex-Role Spillover models in that stereotypic masculine attributes mediate and moderate the negative effects of indirect harassment. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)