PERCEPTUAL AMBIGUITY, GENDER, AND TARGET INTOXICATION - ASSESSING THEEFFECTS OF FACTORS THAT MODERATE PERCEPTIONS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Subjects read a passage which described an interaction between a man a nd a woman at an office party. The woman was either sober or intoxicat ed, and eventually the man engaged in 1 of 3 behaviors which involved varying degrees of sexual innuendo and/or aggression: (a) verbal comme nt, (b) verbal request, and (c) nonverbal physical display. The result s indicated that perceptions did not vary as a function of target pers on's intoxication in the nonverbal-display condition. On the other han d, in the verbal-comment and verbal-request conditions, subjects in th e intoxicated-target-person condition perceived the initiator more fav orably than subjects in the sober-target-person condition. In addition , they indicated that perceptions did not vary as a function of target -person intoxication level in the nonverbal-display condition. On the other hand, in the verbal-comment and verbal-request conditions, male subjects were more favorable toward the initiator than toward female s ubjects.