ATTRACTIVENESS OF THE UNDERLING - AN AUTOMATIC POWER-]SEX ASSOCIATIONAND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND AGGRESSION

One characteristic of men who sexually harass is that they are not awa re that their actions are inappropriate or a misuse of their power (L. F. Fitzgerald, 1993a). We investigated the existence and automaticity of a mental association between the concepts of power and sex, and it s consequences for sexual harassment tendencies. Using a subliminal pr iming paradigm, Experiment 1 demonstrated an automatic link between po wer and sex, and only for men high in the likelihood to sexually haras s or aggress. In Experiment 2, male participants were unobtrusively pr imed with either power-related or neutral stimuli. For men likely to s exually aggress, but not other participants, attraction ratings of a f emale confederate were significantly higher in the power priming than the neutral priming condition.