Does a truck driver see what a nurse sees? The effects of occupation type on perceptions of sexual harassment

Evelyn M. Maeder, Richard L. Wiener, Ryan Winter

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Previous researchers have demonstrated differential prevalence of harassment of men and women in men's traditional, women's traditional, and neutral occupation types, but they have not looked at differences in harassment judgments among these occupations. Our hypotheses rely on the assumption that people who have observed frequent sexual harassment of others in their work environments react differently to new cases than do those who have witnessed fewer of these episodes in the past. Participants watched videos of two cases and made judgments about the presence or absence of sexual harassment. We categorized the participants based on their occupations-men's traditional, women's traditional, and neutral, and compared responses among groups. A gender by occupation type interaction emerged. Men in men's traditional occupation types provided the highest ratings of harassment, followed by men in neutral occupations; men in women's traditional occupation types provided the lowest ratings. Conversely, women in women's traditional occupations provided the highest ratings of harassment, followed by women in neutral occupations; women in men's traditional occupations provided the lowest ratings of sexual harassment.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)801-810
Number of pages10
JournalSex Roles
Volume56
Issue number11-12
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2007

Keywords

  • Occupation
  • Responsibility
  • Sexual harassment

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Gender Studies
  • Social Psychology
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Does a truck driver see what a nurse sees? The effects of occupation type on perceptions of sexual harassment'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this