Students' Perceptions of Sexual Harassment: Is It Harassment Only If the Offender Is a Man and the Victim Is a Woman?

• Published in: Journal of applied social psychology Vol. 33; no. 5; pp. 963 - 982
• Main Authors: Runtz, Marsha G., O'Donnell, Cedar W.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.05.2003; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Gender; Gender studies; Sex differentiation; Sexual harassment; Social perception; Student attitudes; Students; Teacher-student relationship
• ISSN: 0021-9029; 1559-1816
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb01934.x

The present study investigated 3 potential sources of variability in university students’ perceptions of sexual harassment in hypothetical professor‐student scenarios: raters'gender, gender of the professor and student, and rater’ own sexual harassment. Participants were most likely to identify the interactions as harassment when they involved a male offender and a female victim. They were less likely to label the behaviors as harassment when they occurred between members of the same gender or between a female professor and a male student. Women were more open to viewing the scenarios as harassment and men were unlikely to view the interactions between a female professor and a male student as harassment. Personal history of sexual harassment did not influence participants’ perceptions.