The Impact of Perpetrator and Target Gender on Third Party Attributions for Workplace Mistreatment

Abstract

Workplace mistreatment is often ambiguous for direct observers and other third parties. They may be prone to gendered attributions of blame against perpetrators and targets. In the present study, we investigate via video vignettes with four male and four female professional actors whether perpetrator and target gender affect third parties’ moral anger and attributions of blame for workplace mistreatment. 999 Austrian workforce members responded to standardized video clips displaying direct anger as well as indirect social aggression (social exclusion) against a target at work. Using a 2*2*2 mixed design, we manipulated perpetrator gender, target gender and mistreatment scenario (in total four perpetrator/target gender configurations and 16 different actor combinations per scenario). Mixed-effects modeling revealed no significant perpetrator gender effects in the direct anger scenario regarding moral anger, perpetrator and target blaming. In the case of social exclusion, female perpetrators evoked significantly more moral anger and blame than male perpetrators, in particular when the target was female. In female-only perpetrator/target configurations, the female targets were blamed significantly less for social exclusion than when the perpetrator was male. Results corroborate earlier findings on the stereotype and problematization of female/female harassment. Findings also show that the impact of perpetrator gender on attributions of blame by third parties cannot be studied independently of target gender and type of mistreatment. We discuss implications and limitations of findings and the methodological approach.