Acknowledging Sexual Harassment: A Test of Alternative Models

Abstract

Few victims of sexual harassment acknowledge that their experience constitutes sexual harassment. In this study, we examined five general models gleaned from the literature on observers' or laypersons' perceptions of sexual harassment to examine their efficacy in explaining victims' acknowledgment processes: type-of-harassing experience; personal characteristics of the target/observer; and affective consequences of the event(s), attributions, and power (status) of the offender. Data were collected in a campus-wide survey of students, faculty, and staff at a large midwestern university (N = 1,147), which measured incidence rates of eight forms of sexual harassment and the situational characteristics of, responses to, and consequences of the most dramatic experience. Results from single-model and multiple-model hierarchical logistic regression analyses partially support each of the models. The following general model emerged: Individuals who experience unwanted sexual attention are more likely than others to acknowledge being sexually harassed if (a) they perceived their experience as part of a larger problem in their environment, (b) they had a strong emotional reaction to it, (c) the perpetrator was a superior, (d) they were sensitive to the issue of sexual harassment (e.g., they were women instead of men). However, differences in this pattern emerged across various subsamples. This research warrants further theoretical development on victimization acknowledgment processes.