The fit and implementation of sexual harassment law to workplace evaluations.
Three studies used videotaped harassment complaints to examine the impact of legal standards on the evaluation of social-sexual conduct at work. Study 1 demonstrated that without legal instructions, college students' judgment strategies were highly variable. Study 2 compared 2 current legal standards, the "severity or pervasiveness test" and a proposed utilitarian alternative (i.e., the rational woman approach). Undergraduate participants taking the perspective of the complainant were more sensitive to offensive conduct than were those adopting an objective perspective. Although the utilitarian altemative further increased sensitivity on some measures, it failed to produce a principled judgment strategy. Finally, Study 3 examined the kinds of errors that full-time workers make when applying the "severity or pervasiveness" test to examine more closely the sensitivity of the subjective approach.
Department of Psychology, Baruch College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, NY, USA. richard_wiener@baruch.cuny.edu
Richard L
RL
Wiener
Amy
A
Hackney
Karen
K
Kadela
Shannon
S
Rauch
Hope
H
Seib
Laura
L
Warren
Linda E
LE
Hurt
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D016134:Organizational Policy; D010465:Perception; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D017406:Sexual Harassment / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D012919:Social Behavior; D014741:Video Recording; D017132:Workplace