Abstract
Male (96) and female (101) undergraduates (predominately white) described a typical workplace sexual harassment incident. Resulting scripts were content analyzed by male/female pairs of trained coders. Content analysis results showed a “blatant” harassment script involving stereotyped beliefs. Cluster analysis of judged coding gave a more detailed view of the “blatant” scripts as including a male superior harassing a younger, attractive female subordinate (often a secretary) in a private setting, involving a variety of behaviors, both severe (e.g., sexual propositions) and less severe (e.g., comments on physical appearance). Another rather large cluster characterized as “bantering” involved more public harassment in which multiple harassers treat a victim in an unprofessional way. Both clusters showed some subject sex differences in descriptions of behaviors considered as typical harassment, as well as of motive, and of victim response. Additional data collected after the Thomas-Hill hearings is presented.
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Popovich, P.M., Jolton, J.A., Mastrangelo, P.M. et al. Sexual harassment scripts: A means to understanding a phenomenon. Sex Roles 32, 315–335 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01544600
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01544600