Can Perceivers Identify Likelih ood to Sexually
Harass?
1
Denis e M. Driscoll‚
2
Jan ice R. Kelly‚ an d Wen dy L. Hen derson
Purdue University
We in vestigated how m en who differ in their likelihood to sexually harass
(LSH) are perceived by them selves an d others. In Study 1‚ 36 Caucasian male
participan ts‚ who were paid for their participation ‚ were vid eotaped bein g
interviewed by a subordin ate fem ale. Participants rated her perform an ce an d
then responded to self-report attitudin al an d personality scales. Higher LSH
men reported more traditional attitu des toward women’s roles‚ a less feminine
person ality‚ and lower com petency ratings for the female interviewer. Study 2
investigated whether participan ts could differentiate between high an d low LSH
men from videoclips. Eighty-on e m ale an d 76 female Caucasian participan ts‚
who were fulfilling a cou rse requirem ent‚ rated high LSH m en (compared to
low LSH m en) as (1) higher in LSH‚ (2) m ore masculine‚ (3) less fem inin e‚
an d (4) m o re trad ition al toward w om en ’s ro les th an low LSH m en .
Implication s of this ability to detect likelihood to sexually harass are discussed.
Sexual harassme nt is a prevalent proble m that occurs in the workplace and
in acade mic environme nts with de trimental conse que nces for all of those
involve d. Numerous studie s have documente d the enormous costs incurred
by organizations as a result of lawsuits (Baxte r‚ 1987; Garvey‚ 1986) and
reduced individual and work group productivity (Unite d State s Merit Sys-
Sex Roles
‚
Vol. 38
‚
Nos. 7/8
‚
1998
557
0360
¯
0025/98/0400
¯
0557$15.00/0
Ó
1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation
1
Pre paration of this ar ticl e was facilitated by a Purdue School of Li be ral Arts Faculty
Deve lopment Grant. We would like to thank John Pryor for his suggestions re garding the
initial design of these studies and for providing his LSH scale . In addition
‚
we would like to
thank two anonymous reviewers for their he lpful comment and the following undergraduate
rese arch assistants for their contribution to the data collection and coding process: Je nnifer
Pasque tti
‚
Danie lle Loosbrock
‚
Sonya McWhirte r
‚
and Amy Fritsch. In addition
‚
we are
grate ful to Julie Bannister for posing as the high school confederate. We would like to thank
Julie Murphy for he r insightful comments about the research and man uscript.
2
To whom correspon de nce should be addre sse d at Department of Psychological Scie nces
‚
Purdue University
‚
West Lafayette
‚
IN 47907; e -mail: Driscoll@ psych.purdue .edu.
@Phil_Robichaud
@deepthiw
@JoseServera