Korean High School Student's Perceptions of Sexual Harassment: The Effects of Victim's Clothing, Behavior, and Respondent's Gender

Abstract

This study investigates Korean high school student’s perception of sexual harassment and relative effects of victim’s clothing, dating behavior and respondent’s gender on perceptions of alleged sexual harassment cases. A quasiexperimental method was applied using a 2 × 2× 2 between-subjects factorial design that manipulated three variables (clothing exposure, dating behavior, and gender). Questionnaires were distributed to a convenience sample of 540 high school students and 530 questionnaires were used for the data analysis. The results indicate that the victim's clothing and dating behavior had a significant main effect on the responsibility for sexual harassment. The respondent put less responsibility on the assailant when the victim wore revealing clothing and when her dating behavior was provocative. The significant interaction effect between the respondents' gender and the victim's dating behavior indicated that when the victim's behavior was provocative, female respondents held more responsible to victim than male respondents did. The results also indicate that victim's clothing, dating behavior, and respondent's gender had significant main effect on the justification of sexual harassment. The respondents indicated that assailant's behavior is unjustifiable; however, when victim more revealing clothing, they indicated that the behavior is more justifiable.