ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6631-5756

Date of Award

Fall 2024

Language

English

Embargo Period

8-29-2024

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Psychology

Program

Social/Personality Psychology

First Advisor

Anna Reiman

Committee Members

Anna Reiman, Ronald Friedman, Matthew Crayne

Keywords

Sexual harassment, gender harassment, gender identity, gender, race, sexual orientation

Subject Categories

Social Psychology

Abstract

Over the past four decades, scholars have generated a wealth of knowledge on the topic of sexual harassment. However, in much of this research, findings may have resulted from participants assuming that the target in question was a “typical” sexual harassment victim (i.e., a White, straight, cisgender woman who is traditionally feminine and conventionally attractive; Kaiser et al., 2022). As a result, the generalizability of this research is inherently limited, as it may not accurately reflect how sexual harassment is perceived when it is aimed at a person who does not possess the attributes typically associated with sexual harassment targets. This dissertation, which contains a total of eight studies from three manuscripts, examines how non-typical sexual harassment claimants are perceived relative to typical claimants. All three manuscripts focus on sexual harassment claimants who could be labeled as typical or non-typical targets based on their social identities. The first manuscript is comprised of three studies that assess third-party perceivers’ assumptions about the motivations behind a sexual harassment incident (Studies 1-2), the most appropriate consequences for the harasser (Studies 2-3), and assumptions about the most likely form of harassment (Study 3) as a function of whether the claimant was a transgender woman, a lesbian woman, or a woman with no additional identifying information (and thus assumed to be straight and cisgender). The second manuscript contains three studies, all of which asked participants to speculate the form of harassment experienced by a claimant based on her race (Black or White) and gender identity (transgender or cisgender woman). Across these two manuscripts, a claimant’s gender identity and sexual orientation systematically impacted the assumptions perceivers made about the harassment motivations and forms. Specifically, participants tended to assume that transgender women were likely to experience harassment motivated by prejudice and power and that harassment would likely take the form of gender iii harassment. In contrast, lesbian and straight cisgender women were assumed to experience harassment primarily motivated by attraction and power and that it would likely take the form of unwanted sexual attention. A claimant’s race, however, had little impact on assumptions about the form of harassment the claimant was thought to have experienced. Despite some differences, perceivers’ suggestions for the consequences the harasser should face did not vary based on the claimants’ identities. Finally, the third manuscript features two studies that explore how claims may be evaluated based on whether the form of harassment (unwanted sexual attention or gender harassment) matches expectations for the claimant’s gender identity (transgender or assumed cisgender woman). Findings showed that whether the harassment form and claimant gender identity matched did not impact claim evaluations. Rather, transgender women claimants were viewed more negatively than assumed cisgender claimants, regardless of the harassment form described. Taken together, these eight studies establish that perceivers may have very different opinions about sexual harassment depending on whether the claimant is a typical or non-typical harassment target. I further propose that the present findings raise new questions for future research, such as why perceptions vary, how perceivers arrive at their judgments, and what impact perceivers’ and harassers’ identities have on perceptions of sexual harassment.

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This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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