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The influence of a history of romance on judgments and responses to a complaint of sexual harassment

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Abstract

Results indicated that a female complainant was seen as less innocent and an accused male less guilty when they had previously been romantically involved. As a consequence, decision makers felt it was more appropriate to be lenient in responding to the accused. Also, as demonstrated in previous research, male and female decision makers differed in their judgments and responses to a complaint of sexual harassment. These results have implications for organizational policies concerning workplace romance and for training people to deal with complaints of sexual harassment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Saint Mary's University, B3H 3C3, Halifax, NS, Canada

    Russel J. Summers & Karin Myklebust

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  1. Russel J. Summers
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  2. Karin Myklebust
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Additional information

Partial support for this study was provided by a Saint Mary's Senate research grant. The authors thank an anonymous reviewer for the helpful comments on an earlier version of the paper.

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Summers, R.J., Myklebust, K. The influence of a history of romance on judgments and responses to a complaint of sexual harassment. Sex Roles 27, 345–357 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289944

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