Studying sexual harassment in the laboratory: Are egalitarian women at higher risk?

Abstract

A laboratory experiment is reported in which male participants in Northern Italy (N = 120 university students) were given the opportunity to send pornographic material to a female interaction partner ("computer harassment paradigm"). The alleged gender-role orientation of the female (traditional vs. egalitarian) and the construal of the interaction as either intergroup or interpersonal were varied systematically. Results show that participants molest female interaction partners more when they express egalitarian rather than traditional gender-role attitudes; this is particularly true for males with a high propensity to harass (high scores on likelihood of sexual harassment scale, Pryor, 1987), with sexist attitudes, with a strong identification as "males," and for low self-monitors. Also, males with a high propensity to harass were more likely to harass their interaction partner when they perceived the situation as a male-female inter-group setting (rather than as interpersonal). Results are interpreted as supporting a social identity account of misogyny.