This dissertation will develop and test a social psychological theory of how laws aimed at reducing inequality are sometimes undermined by the effect they have on people's beliefs about the existing status hierarchy. Equal opportunity (EO) laws apply to behaviors that are customary and widespread, and thus send the message that "normal" people need to change. I identify three important sources of resistance that laws encounter when they work toward destabilizing "normal" patterns of social interaction. The first is the accepted status order among social groups in society and the latter two are perceived threats to existing privileges and norms of social interaction that the law provokes. While this dissertation will pose, at a theoretical level, a larger question about the common sources of resistance to EO laws, it will test just one logical application of that argument to the case of sexual harassment law. I will use experimental research methods to assess the effect of sexual harassment policies on men's and women's beliefs about gender status and difference. An experiment will be conducted in which males and females complete a computer-based task with a partner of the opposite sex. Three conditions will compare the gender beliefs of participants who are read the university's sexual harassment policy before beginning the task to 1) those who are told that men have higher average scores on the task than women and to 2) those who complete the task with no manipulation. Participants' explicit and implicit beliefs about gender difference will be measured and then compared between conditions to show whether sexual harassment policy interventions activate unequal gender beliefs in a way that differs from other task-oriented situations in which gender is made salient. The results of this study have broader impacts for both theory and policy. Findings will show the effect of a certain type of sexual harassment policy implementation. If the results suggest that policies disseminated as a bureaucratic obligation, or as a means of avoiding legal threat, activate beliefs that run counter to the policy's aims, this information should help organizations implement policies more effectively. More generally, specifying the nature of resistance to laws is important for understanding the conditions under which people mobilize the law, obey the law, and protect themselves from legal threat, as well as when a law can spur ideological change. The results should also provide suggestive evidence about how to examine resistance to other EO policies such as racial harassment, affirmative action, and sexual orientation protections.
