PERCEPTIONS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT AS A FUNCTION OF TARGETS RESPONSE TYPE AND OBSERVERS SEX

Although research has investigated definitions and prevalence of sexua l harassment, little is known about responses to sexual harassment. Th erefore, the present study was designed to explore how individuals int erpret the communication of various target responses. One hundred and twenty employees fr om healthcare settings were randomly assigned to o ne of four conditions. The majority of the individuals in the sample w as White-European-American (75%) while the remaining 25% was comprised of minority members. The conditions contained a video-raped interacti on between two co-workers, one male and one female. The male's behavio r in each interaction continued to escalate to the point of sexual har assment while the female's responses varied There were two passive res ponses and two assertive responses. After viewing the short video part icipants responded to questions assessing their perceptions of the int eraction. Results indicated there were no differences in perceptions b etween men and women when viewing the various conditions. There were, however, differences found between the assertive conditions and the pa ssive conditions. Specifically, assertive responses are perceived as m ore effective than passive responses in communicating unwelcomeness an d in deter-ring the initiator's persistence. However; consistent with the research on responses to sexual harassment, perceptions of sexual harassment appear to be based more on the initiator's behavior than on the target's responses.