This proposal identifies assumptions in hostile work environment sexual harassment law, offers a two-stage processing model to explain them, and proposes 4 studies to test that model. The studies will examine the influence of observer and complainant gender, race, and sexual orientation in harassment judgments. The first stage of the model involves evaluators automatically comparing case facts to internal standards of conduct that may or may not exceed abusiveness thresholds. In the second stage, decision makers use themselves as reference points to judge the impact of social sexual conduct on complainants. These studies are particularly relevant because recent non-binding legal commentary from the U.S. Supreme Court (i.e., Justice Alito) took aim at the longstanding approach of the Ninth Circuit in deciding these cases. The Ninth circuit favors a semi-subjective point of view, the reasonable victim standard when evaluating abusiveness in hostile work environment cases. Such a standard determines abusiveness after considering gender, race, sexual orientation and other relevant complainant attributes. The current theoretical model provides an analysis that explains why a more subjective approach might be useful.
In examining the effect of type of legal standard, the current proposal extends prior work to include harassment of male workers by other men. It tests the power of the reasonable victim as opposed to the reasonable person standard to offset the discriminatory influences of observer and complainant gender, race, and sexual orientation on perceptions of social sexual conduct at work. Study 1 will consist of an open-ended interview to document cognitive representations that heterosexual and homosexual workers use to think about harassers and victims in male on male complaints. It uses concept mapping and qualitative data analysis to reach conclusions about these issues. One product of study 1 will be a measure of identification with male victims and harassers as well as a description of the characteristics that evaluators ascribe to alleged harassers and victims in male on male harassment cases. The measure that results will be used in studies 2 and 3 to test social identification predictions in male on male harassment cases. Other researchers may use this measure to study claims of male and male sexual harassment, which are growing in number in the legal literature.
Studies 2 and 3 will present two videotaped interviews of complainants, alleged harassers, and other workers describing incidents that led to recent cases in which male workers complain about the conduct of other men. While both studies manipulate legal standard (reasonable person vs. reasonable victim), study 2 varies the race of the complainant (African-American vs. Caucasian) and study 3, sexual orientation of the complainant (heterosexual vs. homosexual). Study 2 samples White and African American workers and study 3 samples heterosexual and homosexual workers. Study 4 replicates study 2 with two traditional cases in which women allege that male coworkers behaved abusively. Studies 2, 3, and 4 include individual difference measures of social identification and self-referencing assessing how these factors might influence the fulltime workers who will evaluate the cases.
Each study tests self-referencing hypotheses. They anticipate main effects for observer gender, race, and sexual orientation, as well as, interactions between these variables and complainant race and sexual orientation. The researchers expect stigmatized observers (i.e., women, Blacks, and homosexuals) to find more evidence of harassment especially when sharing in-group status with the complainants on these factors. However, the model predicts that the effects of self-referencing and stigmatization will attenuate when evaluators apply the more subjective reasonable victim standard because that standard encourages them to take the point of view of the alleged victim rather their assuming their own perspectives. The researchers also expect that evaluators will demonstrate bias against African American and homosexual complainants as compared to White and heterosexual complainants, finding less evidence of harassment for the former groups than the latter groups. However, the model predicts that the more subjective reasonable victim standard will offset this bias. The 4 studies investigate the role of worker diversity in harassment judgments and test whether the reasonable victim standard can offset the unintended consequences of workplace diversity. As such, it has important implications for Title VII law.
