Sexual harassment: The relationship of personal vulnerability, work context, perpetrator status, and type of harassment to outcomes

This research examined the relationships between the antecedents and outcomes of sexual harassment as well as the influence of different types of perpetrators and different types of harassment via a survey of 214 women university employees. Gender harassment was the most frequent type of harassment reported. A canonical analysis indicated that it was net related to age in a linear fashion-both the youngest women and those who were middle aged were particularly vulnerable. Male-dominated environments were associated with gender harassment by higher, equal-, and lower level men. In the case of gender harassment perpetrated by lower and equal-level men, opportunity to interact with them was an important contributor, whereas it was negative perceptions of the organization's sanctions against harassment that were important in the case of gender harassment perpetrated by higher level men. In general, the more formal power that the harassers held over their targets, the more likely the targets were to report experiencing negative outcomes. For example, there were no significant negative outcomes reported in the case of gender harassment by lower level men. Gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention by peers was associated with higher perceived stress and turnover intentions. By contrast. gender harassment of professional women by higher level men was associated with a wide variety of negative outcomes including increased stress, turnover intentions, and negative mood and decreased satisfaction with their supervisor. The exception to this pattern was that gender harassment of clerical staff by higher level men was associated only with decreased work satisfaction. (C) 2000 Academic Press.