This research compares the previously studied reasonable person and reasonable woman legal standards with a new reasonable employee standard on hostile work environment sexual harassment. Participants included 115 college students from a mid-Atlantic university. Measures were taken across genuine legal cases based on explicit, ambiguous, and non-traditional occupation fact patterns. No statistically significant difference was found among legal standards on measures of severity, hostile work environment, because of sex or conduct unwelcome. There was however a statistically significant difference between fact patterns on liability. Age, employment experience, and being a victim of sexual harassment produced statistically significant interactions with legal standards on several measures as well.
","abstract_html":"<p>This research compares the previously studied reasonable person and reasonable woman legal standards with a new reasonable employee standard on hostile work environment sexual harassment. Participants included 115 college students from a mid-Atlantic university. Measures were taken across genuine legal cases based on explicit, ambiguous, and non-traditional occupation fact patterns. No statistically significant difference was found among legal standards on measures of severity, hostile work environment, because of sex or conduct unwelcome. There was however a statistically significant difference between fact patterns on liability. Age, employment experience, and being a victim of sexual harassment produced statistically significant interactions with legal standards on several measures as well.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Rice, Jeanne M. O'Brien"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"M.A. in Mental Health Counseling and Applied Psychology","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Gaer, Eleanor"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2008,"date_issued":"2008-04-30T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2008-04-30T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T04:13:40Z","subjects":["Sexual harassment--Law and legislation; Work environment","Psychology"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://rdw.rowan.edu/etd/753","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Gaer, Eleanor"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Rice, Jeanne M. O'Brien"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2016-03-23T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.A. in Mental Health Counseling and Applied Psychology"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Sexual harassment--Law and legislation; Work environment","Psychology"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://rdw.rowan.edu/etd/753"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This research compares the previously studied reasonable person and reasonable woman legal standards with a new reasonable employee standard on hostile work environment sexual harassment. Participants included 115 college students from a mid-Atlantic university. Measures were taken across genuine legal cases based on explicit, ambiguous, and non-traditional occupation fact patterns. No statistically significant difference was found among legal standards on measures of severity, hostile work environment, because of sex or conduct unwelcome. There was however a statistically significant difference between fact patterns on liability. Age, employment experience, and being a victim of sexual harassment produced statistically significant interactions with legal standards on several measures as well.
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