Perceptions of sexual and nonsexual harassment

Abstract

Recent research suggests that sexual harassment may have serious psychological and job-related consequences for victims. Most research has focussed on men's sexual harassment of women. Other researchers have suggested that people experience other harassing behaviours at work that are not sexual, but have similar negative consequences. The purpose of this study was to examine perceptions of same-sex and opposite-sex sexual harassment, nonsexual harassment, and harassment involving a threat. Participants were 175 undergraduate students who listened to 1 of 16 audiotaped vignettes in which a man or a woman described having been the target of harassment that was either sexual or nonsexual, contained either a verbal comment alone or the same verbal comment and a job-related threat. The gender of the harasser was also manipulated. Participants then completed a questionnaire that measured their reactions to the scenario. Results showed that although sexual situations were somewhat more likely than nonsexual situations to be defined as harassment, the severity of psychological and job-related consequences attributed to the target did not differ as a function of whether the harassment was sexual or nonsexual. Job-related threats were perceived as having more negative consequences than verbal comments alone. Overall, women attributed more negative consequences to the target of harassment than did men. However, consistent with previous research, this effect is qualified by an interaction between gender of the participant and self-esteem.