Of beauties, beaus, and beasts : studying women's and men's actual and imagined experiences of sexual and gender harassment
type: CreativeWork
description: Evidence from five studies focusing on different factors that influence interpretation of different behaviors constituting different forms of sexual harassment and gender harassment is presented. Six factors of influence were studied: (1) physical attractiveness and (2) quality of financial resources of the harasser, (3) gender and (4) attitudes of the harassee, (5) interpreting derogatory versus interpreting "flirtatious" behavior, and (6) interpreting actual harassment versus interpreting imagined harassment presented in a scenario (Note: With actual harassment, harassment that people actually and currently experience is meant, as compared to harassment that people imagine to experience or remember having actually experienced in the past). In Study 1, women's interpretations of two forms of actual sexual and gender harassment were investigated under controlled laboratory conditions. The two types of harassment were explicitly derogatory toward the target or constituted sexual attention. These harassment types were operationalized as sexist jokes and, e.g., as remarks about physical appearance of the participant. In the control conditions, neutral jokes and remarks replaced harassing jokes and remarks. In addition, harasser attractiveness was varied. To study reactions to actual behavior, a new methodology was developed, the Reversed Computer Harassment Paradigm. In this paradigm, participants believed to be connected online to a real, but in fact computer simulated chat partner, who sent different materials via a chat line. Results of Study 1 show that participants evaluate non-harassers and attractive men and their behavior more favorably than harassers and unattractive men and their behavior. However, the attractiveness effect found on more indirect rating dimensions disappeared when participants were alerted to the sexually harassing quality of the behavior: Answering the direct question whether the behavior was sexually harassing, participants no longer judged…
abstract: Evidence from five studies focusing on different factors that influence interpretation of different behaviors constituting different forms of sexual harassment and gender harassment is presented. Six factors of influence were studied: (1) physical attractiveness and (2) quality of financial resources of the harasser, (3) gender and (4) attitudes of the harassee, (5) interpreting derogatory versus interpreting "flirtatious" behavior, and (6) interpreting actual harassment versus interpreting imagined harassment presented in a scenario (Note: With actual harassment, harassment that people actually and currently experience is meant, as compared to harassment that people imagine to experience or remember having actually experienced in the past). In Study 1, women's interpretations of two forms of actual sexual and gender harassment were investigated under controlled laboratory conditions. The two types of harassment were explicitly derogatory toward the target or constituted sexual attention. These harassment types were operationalized as sexist jokes and, e.g., as remarks about physical appearance of the participant. In the control conditions, neutral jokes and remarks replaced harassing jokes and remarks. In addition, harasser attractiveness was varied. To study reactions to actual behavior, a new methodology was developed, the Reversed Computer Harassment Paradigm. In this paradigm, participants believed to be connected online to a real, but in fact computer simulated chat partner, who sent different materials via a chat line. Results of Study 1 show that participants evaluate non-harassers and attractive men and their behavior more favorably than harassers and unattractive men and their behavior. However, the attractiveness effect found on more indirect rating dimensions disappeared when participants were alerted to the sexually harassing quality of the behavior: Answering the direct question whether the behavior was sexually harassing, participants no longer judged…
author: Vanselow, Nina
date published: 2009-11-26
date modified: 2026-07-27T18:49:58Z
provider: Universität Bielefeld
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Universität Bielefeld