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Sexual harassment in the workplace.

• Rose L. Siuta Rose L. Siuta Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University
•  and  Mindy E. Bergman Mindy E. Bergman Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.191
• Published online: 25 June 2019

Business and management conceptualizations of sexual harassment have been informed by both legal and psychological definitions. From the psychological perspective, sexual harassment behaviors include harassment based on one’s gender, enacting unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. The most recent psychological theories of sexual harassment acknowledge that it is a gendered experience motivated by the societal stratification of gender and not by sexual gratification.

Harassing behaviors negatively impact individual well-being. Well-documented workplace effects of sexual harassment include reduced job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and productivity, and increased job stress, turnover, withdrawal, and conflict. Sexual harassment negatively affects target’s psychological and physical well-being, including increases in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety symptoms, emotional exhaustion, headaches, sleep problems, gastric distress, and upper respiratory problems. All of these individual-level effects can result in financial decrements for the target and the organization.

Both individual and organizational factors predict sexual harassment. Women are more likely to experience sexual harassment, as well as minoritized persons, with women who embody more than one minority identity being the most likely to experience sexual harassment. This finding supports the interpretation of sexual harassment as motivated by reinforcing societal power hierarchies. Other individual factors such as sexual orientation, age, education level, and marital status are also related to experiencing sexual harassment. At the organizational level, organizational climate, job-gender context, and relative power between the harasser and the target predict sexual harassment. Organizational climates that are more tolerant of sexual harassment produce more sexual harassment. In addition, as masculinity of a work context increases, so does sexual harassment for women. Lastly, those with lower organizational power are more likely to experience sexual harassment, particularly by people with higher levels of power; however, contrapower harassment (harassment of individuals with higher organizational power by those with lower organizational power) can also occur.

Reporting harassment to organizational authorities has been theorized to lead to positive outcomes, but reporting rates are low. This may reflect findings that procedures for reporting are often unclear and that reporting often leads to worse outcomes for targets of harassment than their non-reporting peers.

The two most common approaches to measuring sexual harassment are direct query (explicitly ask about sexual harassment) or behavior experiences (ask respondents about how many sexually harassing behaviors they have experienced). A few considerations for the methodology used in these studies include inconsistency in conceptual or operational definitions of sexual harassment, the framing of a study, the retrospective nature of research asking about past experiences, and the sampling methodology used. A number of gaps remain in the documentation and understanding of sexual harassment phenomena, which intersect with some research practices and challenges. These include (a) the need to take into account factors other than incidence rates, such as perceived severity of experiences; (b) further examination of how multiple minority statuses and intersectional oppression affect harassment; (c) the importance of conducting research on harassment perpetrators; and (d) the examination of culturally informed topics related to sexual harassment, particularly outside Western countries.

• sexual harassment
• organizational climate
• job-gender context
• methodology

Introduction

Sexual harassment is a form of sex-based abuse that happens in the workplace (Berdahl, 2007a ; Fitzgerald, 1993 ; Gutek & Koss, 1993 ). It also happens in schools and other institutions, but because of the nature of this encyclopedia, this review focuses on the workplace. This article focuses primarily on the psychological, rather than the legal, definitions of sexual harassment because the psychological conceptualization of sexual harassment is the same across jurisdictions, time, court decisions, and legislation, but the legal definition is not. Additionally, this article focuses on the psychological conceptualization, because harm to employees and their organizations can occur even when harassing experiences do not rise to the level of a legal standard for harassment. In light of the recent rise of the #MeToo movement (a social media phenomenon whereby a surge of people used social media to acknowledge experiences with sexual harassment following claims levied against prominent figures in Hollywood and business), attention to sexual harassment has become even more urgent in organizational contexts. Results of a meta-analytic study of the workplace sexual harassment literature reveal that approximately 58% of women have experienced sexual harassment (Ilies, Hauserman, Schwochau, & Stibal, 2003 ). In the United States, the prevalence of workplace experiences of sexual harassment is 41% for women and 32% for men (Das, 2009 ). Similar rates have been found in Europe and Australia (AHRC, 2012 ; Latcheva, 2017 ), with 33% of women in Australia and 45–55% of women in Europe experiencing harassment at least once in their lives. Within Europe, women in Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden reported higher prevalence rates (71–81%) than those in Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, and Romania (24–32%) (Latcheva, 2017 ). Incidence rates of sexual harassment are lower in Eastern nations like China (12.5%; Parish, Das, & Laumann, 2006 ) and Japan (9.5%; Chen et al., 2008 ) than those of Western nation counterparts. Meanwhile, one study on educational contexts in Ethiopia found similar prevalence rates to Western nations (Marsh et al., 2009 ). Thus, it is clear that sexual harassment is a worldwide and common experience.

What Is Sexual Harassment?

In the United States, sexual harassment law is informed by both legislation (e.g., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 ) and case law (e.g., Burlington v. Ellerth , 2000 ; Faragher v. Boca Raton , 2000 ; Meritor v. Vinson , 1979 ; Oncale v. Sundowner , 1998 ). As new legislation is enacted and court cases accumulate, the parameters change regarding how sexual harassment is defined, what evidence is necessary to support a charge of sexual harassment, and who can be held liable for substantiated claims. Sexual harassment law has long recognized that there are two distinct types or components to sexual harassment: quid pro quo and hostile environment harassment. Quid pro quo harassment, which translates to “this for that,” is the notion that someone’s employment, promotions, compensation, or other terms and conditions of employment are dependent upon submitting to sexual requests or by providing sexual favors. Hostile environment harassment occurs when there is pervasive unwanted sexual attention, gendered and sexualized jokes, and comments, and other behaviors occurring in the organization; it’s as though harassment is “in the air.”

Other countries have different laws and guidance. For example, although each European Union (EU) member country has its own specific law regarding sexual harassment, EU member nations are guided by Directive 2006 /54/EC, which focuses on equal treatment of women and men in the workplace. This Directive states, “Harassment and sexual harassment are contrary to the principle of equal treatment between men and women and constitute discrimination on grounds of sex.” This Directive indicates that both harassment and sexual harassment are designed to intimidate, degrade, offend, or humiliate people, but differ in their content, whereby sexual harassment specifically has sexualized content, whereas harassment is treatment based on sex. Pakistan has two laws that prohibit sexual harassment: section 509 of the Pakistan Criminal Penal Code (a criminal law) and the Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act of 2010 (a civil law; Jatoi, 2018 ). In New Zealand, harassment is also covered by two separate laws: the Employment Relations Act 2000 and the Human Rights Act 1993 ; these differ in the timelines for filing a complaint and how (Employment New Zealand, 2018 ). Japan’s legal precedent against sexual harassment began in 1992 following a successful suit whereby a publishing company and one of its employees were found responsible for crude remarks toward a woman, who was driven to quit her job from the negative experience (Huen, 2007 ; Weisman, 1992 ); statutes prohibiting sexual harassment appeared in Japan in 1997 (Huen, 2007 ). Thus, it is clear that there are numerous and varied laws and timelines regarding the prohibition of sexual harassment across the world.

The predominant psychological model of sexual harassment in the workplace was proposed by Fitzgerald, Hulin, and Drasgow ( 1995 ; Gelfand, Fitzgerald, & Drasgow, 1995 ). They argued that sexual harassment is composed of a set of interrelated domains of behavior. These include gender harassment (later split into sexual hostility and sexist hostility; Fitzgerald, Magley, Drasgow, & Waldo, 1999 ; Hay & Elig, 1999 ), unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. Sexist hostility refers to comments and behaviors that indicate that one sex (e.g., females) is worse than the other (e.g., males) in some way, such as being unsuited for some jobs, less intelligent, or humorless. Sexual hostility includes comments and behaviors that have a sexualized component and are demeaning to a group of people (e.g., women) or to an individual person; examples include comments about or attempts to draw a person into discussions about their personal sexual experiences, catcalls, sexual “jokes” or stories, ogling, exhibitionist or exposure behaviors, and sexual gestures. Unwanted sexual attention is behaviors that focus sexualized attention on a person, including unwanted touching (e.g., pats on the buttocks, massaging the shoulders, brushing up against someone), repeated requests for dates, and exposure to pornographic materials; unwanted sexual attention also includes rape and attempted rape. Sexual coercion is behaviors in which one person indicates that the terms and conditions of employment for another person are dependent complying with sexual requests, whether it is engaging in sexual behavior or submitting to sexualized comments and jokes. Fitzgerald et al.’s concepts map onto the legal concepts of harassment, with sexual coercion parallel to quid pro quo harassment and sexist hostility, sexual hostility, and unwanted sexual attention aligning with hostile environment harassment (Fitzgerald, Gelfand, & Drasgow, 1995 ).

Berdahl ( 2007a ) proposed that sexual harassment be reframed and renamed as “sex-based harassment” to emphasize that sexual harassment is not about sexual relationships gone awry, but rather the sex-based social power hierarchies that exist within organizations and the broader societies in which they are embedded. This is critical because it explains (a) why there are differential patterns in who harasses whom (e.g., why men are more likely to harass women than vice versa), (b) why “uppity” (Berdahl, 2007b ; Berdahl & Moore, 2006 ) and other “unattractive” or unconventional women are harassed, and (c) why some men are harassed and which ones are most likely to be harassed (Berdahl, Magley, & Waldo, 1996 ; Fitzgerald & Cortina, 2017 ; Holland et al., 2016 ; Stockdale, Visio, & Batra, 1999 ). This perspective pushes back against the notion that sexual harassment is about sex and attraction and instead purports that it is about power and its preservation. Sexual harassment is a way to maintain power and status; it is a tool to suppress the advancement of women and others who might challenge the power, resources, and status that are held by the people at higher and the highest levels of the sex-based social hierarchy (Maass, Cadinu, Guarnieri, & Grasselli, 2003 ). In essence, lowering another person’s sex-based status is a mechanism for bolstering one’s own sex-based status. Berdahl ( 2007a ) notes that in the United States, the highest levels of the sex-based social hierarchy are occupied by cis, white, hetero, Christian, strong, smart, handsome, “manly” men. To the extent that people deviate from this standard and that they challenge the positions that are held by these men increases their likelihood of being harassed.

Fitzgerald and Cortina ( 2017 ), however, argue that sexual harassment is primarily a women’s issue because sexual harassment primarily occurs toward women. Additionally, they note that while Berdahl’s ( 2007a ) perspective is useful, men are harassed because the harasser perceives them to be “not man enough,” and the harassment that they receive often includes taunts and other behaviors that highlight that they are not “manly.”

It is clear from these recent developments that sexual harassment must be discussed within the context of the social stratification of gender that permits it. Early explanations of sexual harassment defined it as emerging from desire for sexual gratification (for reviews, see Berdahl, 2007a ; Lengnick-Hall, 1995 ; Welsh, 1999 ). Models of sexual harassment then focused on the normative permissiveness toward sexual harassment behaviors, the wide variety of behaviors—including non-sexual behaviors—that sexual harassment encompassed, and the individual and organizational fallout for sexual harassment in the workplace (Fitzgerald et al., 1995 ). Now theories of harassment have evolved to recognize that the gendered nature of sexual harassment is critical to our understanding of it (Berdahl, 2007a ; Fitzgerald & Cortina, 2017 ). In sum, views of sexual harassment have increasingly moved toward an analysis of its motivations as they relate to the social stratification of gender in a larger context and in the specific organizational context, as opposed to a focus on motivations stemming from sexual gratification.

Sexual Harassment as a Psychological Stressor

Fitzgerald et al. ( 1995 ) proposed an “integrated model of sexual harassment.” Their model integrated several psychological perspectives and literatures, including work from the fields of industrial-organizational psychology, clinical psychology, social psychology, violence, trauma, and law and psychology. Most notably, their work framed sexual harassment as a psychological stressor. Their work drew in particular on the transactional model of stress (Folkman, Lazarus, Gruen, & deLongis, 1986 ; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984 ). Like other models of stress, the transactional model of stress indicates that stressors are events that tax an individual’s resources and require some action to restore the balance of resources the person had before the event. Further, the model recognizes that stressors can be psychosocial (i.e., occurring in interpersonal relationships and interactions). The transactional model of stress also proposes that the extent to which stressors affect people depends on their primary and secondary appraisals of the event. Primary appraisal is the assessment of how threatening the event is to the person’s well-being, identity, or other important life factor; secondary appraisal is the assessment of what coping resources a person has to remediate the situation. Although they are named “primary” and “secondary” appraisal, it is not the case that primary always and only precedes secondary appraisal. For example, the realization that a person lacks any coping resources (secondary appraisal) to deal with the situation could make it more threatening to the person (primary appraisal).

One reason why this particular model of stress was adopted over other models of stress appears to be that the concepts of primary and secondary appraisal helped explain why similar sex-based behaviors could elicit different responses from different people. For example, a salacious joke told to a group of people could be seen as threatening to Person A and non-threatening or even funny to Person B. Similarly, Person A could perceive a salacious joke told by Person C as threatening and a similar joke told by Person D as non-threatening. Primary and secondary appraisal help explain why this can occur. The context of these jokes, the people who tell them, and the people who hear them change the dynamics of power and subsequent threat. Fitzgerald et al. ( 1995 ) acknowledged this in their model by theorizing personal vulnerability factors that affect the relationship between sexual harassment and job-, psychological-, and health-related outcomes.

However, this perspective also bolstered the “whiner hypothesis” (Magley, Hulin, Fitzgerald, & DeNardo, 1999a ), which argued that women overreact to sex-based workplace experiences. That is, the inclusion of appraisal in Fitzgerald et al.’s ( 1995 ) model of sexual harassment indicates that there is a subjective component to understanding harassment, but the “whiner hypothesis” over-interprets that component to indicate that most harassment is subjective overreaction to harmless behavior. However, research shows that regardless of whether women label their experiences as harassment, they are harmed by harassing behaviors; the whiner hypothesis has been thoroughly debunked (Bergman & Henning, 2008 ; Ilies et al., 2003 ; Magley et al., 1999a ; McDonald, 2012 ; Welsh, 1999 ). Further, there is burgeoning evidence that personal vulnerability factors are as important or more important in identifying why some people are targeted for harassment compared to explaining why some people are more harmed by harassment (Bergman & Henning, 2008 ; Settles, Buchanan, & Colar, 2012 ).

One of the hallmarks of stressors is the negative effect that they have on individual well-being. The next section reports these findings.

Outcomes of Harassment

Research consistently shows that sexual harassment has a negative effect on target well-being, whether psychological, job related, or health related outcomes. In the following, several key effects are highlighted.

Job Outcomes

Sexual harassment negatively affects targets’ job-related well-being. The negative effect of sexual harassment on job satisfaction is well documented in the United States and around the world (Fitzgerald et al., 1997 ; Hutagalung, & Ishak, 2012 ; Malik, Malik, Qureshi, & Atta, 2014 ; Merkin & Shah, 2014 ; Nielsen, Bjørkelo, Notelaers, & Einarsen, 2010 ; Sojo, Wood, & Genat, 2016 ; Wasti, Bergman, Glomb, & Drasgow, 2000 ; Willness, Steel, & Lee, 2007 ). Through meta-analysis, Willness et al. ( 2007 ) demonstrated that sexual harassment negatively affects all forms of workplace satisfaction, with slightly stronger negative effects on satisfaction with interpersonal aspects of work (i.e., co-worker and supervisor satisfaction) compared to satisfaction with the work itself. Beyond job satisfaction, sexual harassment has effects on a number of work-related outcomes, including job stress (Cortina, Fitzgerald, & Drasgow, 2002 ; Lim & Cortina, 2005 ) and organizational commitment (Willness et al., 2007 ).

Sexual harassment has also been negatively linked to a variety of aspects of job performance and turnover (Barling, Rogers, & Kelloway, 2001 ; Liu, Kwan, & Chiu, 2014 ; Magley, Waldo, Drasgow, & Fitzgerald, 1999b ; Raver & Gelfand, 2005 ; Woodzicka & LaFrance, 2005 ). Because both job satisfaction and organizational commitment predict turnover (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000 ; Mathieu, Fabi, Lacoursière, & Raymond, 2016 ; Meyer, Stanley, Hercovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002 ; Riketta, 2002 ) and both are negatively impacted by sexual harassment, this suggests that experiencing sexual harassment will predict turnover as well. Furthermore, people who are sexually harassed are more likely to turn over than people who are not (Sims, Drasgow, & Fitzgerald, 2005 ). Because harassment can prompt turnover, it can increase financial strain for targets and also damage their ongoing career prospects (McLaughlin, Uggen, & Blackstone, 2017 ). In addition, Willness et al. ( 2007 ) showed a positive relationship between sexual harassment and organizational withdrawal, including avoiding work, missing work, and neglecting to complete job tasks. Gruber ( 2003 ) found that sexual harassment is more likely to result in its targets avoiding work than any other type of outcome, including actual turnover (Willness et al., 2007 ).

The effects of sexual harassment are not limited to just the target of the harassment, but can also spread to other members and areas within the organization. These effects are exemplified by decreased job satisfaction, increased conflict within teams, and increased turnover and withdrawal behaviors that show that when there is an increase in sexual harassment, there is also a decrease in workgroup productivity (Willness et al., 2007 ). Parker and Griffin ( 2002 ) demonstrated that sexual harassment is positively related to conflict within teams and impairment of relationships between team members, which translates to a decrease in team financial performance. In addition to effects of one person’s harassment experiences on team functioning, knowledge of harassment and harassment climate also negatively affect employees and workplaces. Witnessing sexual harassment negatively affects the job satisfaction of the bystander (Dionisi & Barling, 2018 ; Glomb et al., 1997 ; Richman-Hirsch & Glomb, 2002 ). Further, organizational climates that are tolerant of sexual harassment are negatively linked to job satisfaction (Fitzgerald, Drasgow, & Magley, 1999 ).

Health Outcomes

Experiencing sexual harassment has also been linked to a variety of negative health outcomes for the target—both mental and physical (Fitzgerald et al., 1997 ; Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012 ; Sojo et al., 2016 ; Willness et al., 2007 ). Further, Dionisi, Barling, and Dupré ( 2012 ) found that the negative effect on psychological well-being is stronger for threatened and real physical contact forms of sexual harassment than for other types of workplace mistreatment. For women targets, symptoms of PTSD are positively correlated and general psychological well-being is negatively correlated with sexual harassment (Schneider, Swan, & Fitzgerald, 1997 ). Willness et al.’s ( 2007 ) meta-analysis demonstrated that symptoms of PTSD were positively correlated with experiences of sexual harassment. Symptoms of depression and anxiety are also positively correlated with exposure to sexual harassment (Ho, Dinh, Bellefontaine, & Irving, 2012 ; Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012 ). When observing medical diagnoses received by plaintiffs in harassment trials, major depressive disorder and PTSD were the most common mental health symptoms reported (Fitzgerald et al., 1999 ).

Sexual harassment is also linked to alcohol abuse and the risk of eating disorders (Harned & Fitzgerald, 2002 ; Rospenda, Fujshiro, Shannon, & Richman, 2008 ). Schneider, Tomaka, and Palacios ( 2001 ) found that cardiovascular activity increased even after mild experiences of gender harassment. Additionally, there is a positive relationship between experiencing sexual harassment and various psychosomatic symptoms. These include an increase in the experience of headaches, sleep problems, gastric distress, and upper respiratory infections (Barling et al., 1996 ). In addition to physical health problems, those who experience sexual harassment are also more likely to experience emotional exhaustion (de Haas, Timmerman, & Höing, 2009 ). Taken in conjunction, these findings show that sexual harassment has effects on multiple aspects of a target’s life, including job effects, psychological effects, and physical health effects.

Predictors of Harassment

In this section, individual and organizational predictors of sexual harassment are reviewed. These findings are important because they highlight both the individual characteristics that make one more likely to be targeted with sexual harassment, as well as the organizational characteristics that can leave individuals more vulnerable to these experiences. Organizations would benefit from understanding the intersections of individual- and organizational-level predictors to prevent sexual harassment and minimize the harmful effects on targets and co-workers. This would allow more proactive attempts to prevent harassment rather than reactively respond via legal compliance routes.

Target Characteristics Associated With Sexual Harassment

One of the enduring findings in the sexual harassment literature is that women are more likely to experience sexual harassment than men (Foster & Fullagar, 2018 ; Ilies et al., 2003 ; U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1981 , 1988 , 1994 ). This is consistent with theories of power in sexual harassment (e.g., Berdahl, 2007a ) as well as theories of intersectional oppression (e.g., Crenshaw, 1989 ). Additionally, intersectionality theory suggests that occupying more than one minoritized 1 category can have a multiplicative effect on sexual harassment (Crenshaw, 1989 ). Generally, intersectionality theories examine how demographic identity markers are inextricably linked because systems of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism) are inextricably linked as ways to uphold the society’s hegemonic power structure. The consequence for sexual harassment research is that a target’s risk for and rates of sexual harassment are likely to increase as the number of minoritized identities increase. One example of this effect is evident in research showing that racially/ethnically minoritized women experience more harassment than white women, white men, or racially/ethnically minoritized men (Berdahl & Moore, 2006 ). Racially and ethnically minoritized women are also more likely to be employed in positions that are lower status and with less organizational power (Bayard, Hellerstein, Neumark, & Troske, 2003 ; Maume, 1999 ), which may leave them vulnerable to the effects of power differences on sexual harassment discussed in the following section. Similarly, women are particularly at risk for experiencing sexual harassment when they come from backgrounds with low sociocultural power (Harned et al., 2002 ). In their theory, Fitzgerald et al. ( 1995 ) highlighted low economic power as a likely strong predictor of sexual harassment and its negative effects (i.e., as a moderator of the sexual harassment–outcome relationship) because people with low economic power have little opportunity to leave their current job for another.

Race and ethnicity also predict experiences of sexual harassment. Bergman and Drasgow ( 2003 ) found that among U.S. military women, the frequency of experiences of sexual harassment differed depending on race, with Native American women reporting the most harassment, Hispanic and black women reporting the next most frequent amount of harassment, followed by Asian women, and with white women indicating the fewest instances of harassment. Similarly, among men in the U.S. military, black men report more frequent experiences of sexual harassment than white men (Settles et al., 2012 ). Additionally, racial/ethnic minoritized persons experience an additional type of sexual harassment, racialized sexual harassment, that reflects both their sex status and their race status (Buchanan, 2005 ; Buchanan & Ormerod, 2002 ; Welsh, Carr, MacQuarrie, & Huntley, 2006 ).

LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) persons are also likely to experience sexual harassment, and in particular to experience a specific form of sexual harassment, sexual orientation harassment, whereby unwanted behaviors are exhibited toward an individual because of their perceived sexual orientation (Ryan & Wessel, 2012 ). This harassment can take the form of direct unwanted expressions or actions, or can come from ambient expressions of hostility toward sexual minorities in the workplace climate. Because sexual orientation can remain a hidden identity in comparison to more outwardly visible determinants of minoritized status, such as race or gender, these individuals may be especially prone to experiencing sexual orientation harassment in its more ambient form. Like other demographic risk factors, sexual orientation–based sexual harassment reflects threats to the sex-based societal power structure (Berdahl, 2007a ). Similarly, men experience a type of sexual harassment, “not man enough” harassment, which is deployed when men violate gender norms (Berdahl et al., 1996 ; Funk & Werhun, 2011 ); this idea has been expanded into “gender policing harassment” in order to encapsulate women’s experiences and an LGBTQ person’s harassment experiences based on perceived violations of gender norms (Konik & Cortina, 2008 ). As a summary statement, people who violate gender norms are more likely to experience sexual harassment (Berdahl, 2007a , 2007b ; Konik & Cortina, 2008 ).

Age, education level, and marital status have also been linked to sexual harassment. Younger people are more likely to experience sexual harassment than their older counterparts (Fain & Anderton, 1987 ). Those who are younger are also more likely to occupy lower positions in organizations and hold less sociocultural power when compared to their older counterparts. Additionally, those who have attained a lower education level are also less likely to hold higher positions in organizations. Individuals with lower education levels are similarly more likely to experience sexual harassment (Fain & Anderton, 1987 ). Lastly, those who are married are less vulnerable to sexual harassment than their single counterparts (Fain & Anderton, 1987 ). Each of these factors might be a proxy for the economic dependence on their current job (Fitzgerald et al., 1995 ).

Organizational-Level Predictors of Harassment

At the organizational level, three major facilitating conditions of sexual harassment have been identified: organizational climate, job-gender context, and relative power between the harasser and the target. Organizational climate is the extent to which the workplace tolerates sexual harassment (Hulin, Fitzgerald, & Drasgow, 1996 ). Job-gender context reflects the gendered nature of a particular job, including the sex ratios within the workgroup, the sex of the supervisor, and the stereotypical gender associated with a job (e.g., surgeon vs. nurse; Gutek, 1985 ). Relative power is the extent to which one person occupies more powerful positions than the other.

There are numerous climates in organizations, corresponding to sets of expectations about particular components of organizational life; because of this, specific instantiations of climate are “climates for” components of the organization (Ostroff, Kinicki, & Muhammad, 2013 ). Organizational climate is generally conceptualized as the normative expectations of the contingencies regarding behaviors—what is rewarded and supported, or condemned and sanctioned (Ostroff et al., 2013 ). Organizational climate relevant to sexual harassment was originally conceptualized and operationalized as organizational tolerance for sexual harassment (Hulin et al., 1996 ), but often is referred to as “organizational climate” or “climate toward harassment.” Regardless of the particular label or measure used, organizational climate in the context of sexual harassment reflects the extent to which sexual harassment is rewarded, supported, or sanctioned in the organization. It reflects the normative expectations of whether sexual harassment is tolerated.

The second major organizational predictor of sexual harassment is job-gendered context (Gutek, 1985 ). This is the extent to which a job is gendered as masculine or feminine. Gender is an integral part of defining power structures within organizations, which includes divisions of organizational power along gender lines, images which reinforce gender stereotypes, male dominance in social interactions, gendered individual identities, and the underlying creation of gendered organizational structures (Acker, 1990 ). Job-gender context includes both the local context and the occupational history and stereotypes. Job-gendered context is often operationalized with assessments of (a) the sex of the supervisor for the position, (b) the local sex ratio of the people in the position and the co-workers attached to it, and (c) the gendered stereotype associated with the job (Fitzgerald et al., 1997 ). Results indicate that women in more masculine jobs (i.e., those that have a man as a supervisor, have more men than women as co-workers, and/or where the job is more associated with men than with women) are more likely to experience sexual harassment (Bergman et al., 2002 ; Fitzgerald et al., 1997 ). This is consistent with Berdahl’s ( 2007a , 2007b ) argument that women who are perceived to be interlopers in male spaces are more likely to be harassed.

The organizational power difference between the target and the harasser is also a factor in experiences of sexual harassment. Not only is occupying positions of lower organizational power associated with a greater risk of sexual harassment for women than for those who occupy positions of higher organizational power (Harned et al., 2002 ), but the power difference between the target and harasser matters as well (Bergman et al., 2002 ). However, it should be noted that relative organizational power is only one marker of the power differential between harasser and target. Contrapower harassment also occurs, such that persons with higher organizational power but lower social power on other aspects experience harassment from persons with lower organizational power but higher social power (Rospenda, Richman, & Nawyn, 1998 ).

Reporting Sexual Harassment

There is considerable interest in the formal reporting of sexual harassment to organizational authorities because reporting is theorized to have significant benefit to both the target of harassment and to the broader organization. Although people indicate in vignette studies that they are likely to confront or report their harassers (see Woodzicka & LaFrance, 2001 , for a review), studies of people in real (rather than “thought experiment,” vignette, or “paper people” studies of harassing situations) indicate otherwise (Bergman at al., 2002 ; Brooks & Perot, 1991 ; Culbertson & Rosenfeld, 1994 ; Firestone & Harris, 2003 ). Note that people can report experiencing sexually harassing behavior even if they do not label it as sexual harassment (Bergman et al., 2002 ).

The low rates of reporting are surprising when considering the theorized positive outcomes of reporting harassment (Bergman et al., 2002 ). Following a report, the harassing behavior should end, which should result in some—although not necessarily full—recovery from the stress resulting from the harassment (Munson, Hulin, & Drasgow, 2000 ). Additionally, reports should provide the opportunity for organizations to identify problematic employees and either sanction them or remove them from the organization; it should also buffer the organization from liability because the organization should respond appropriately (Bergman et al., 2002 ). However, research indicates that despite the putative goals of reporting, people do not benefit from the reporting experience compared to their non-reporting peers; oftentimes, reporters are actually worse off than if they had never reported (Adams-Roy & Barling, 1998 ; Bergman et al., 2002 ; Brooks & Perot, 1991 ; Firestone & Harris, 2003 ; Fitzgerald, Swan, & Fischer, 1995 ; Gruber & Smith, 1995 ; Hotelling, 1991 ; Malamut & Offermann, 2001 ).

The deficits in well-being from reporting are likely due to unclear procedures and negative consequences associated with reporting sexual harassment. Across a number of studies, targets of sexual harassment claimed that the reasons they chose not to report the harassment were due to concerns regarding the definition of harassment, the work environment not being conducive to reporting, questions of what would happen to their job status, and fear of other organizational and personal consequences (Adams-Roy & Barling, 1998 ; Bergman et al., 2002 ; Brooks & Perot, 1991 ; Fitzgerald et al., 1995 ; Gruber & Smith, 1995 ; Hesson-McInnis & Fitzgerald, 1997 ; Hotelling, 1991 ; Malamut & Offermann, 2001 ).

Organizational factors also influence sexual harassment reporting. Notably, organizational climate influences reporting, such that if people perceive others to be accepting of harassment, then they are less likely to report (Bergman et al., 2002 ; Halbesleben, 2009 ; Offermann & Malamut, 2002 ). Additionally, leaders’ views of harassment play a role, such that leaders who are anti-harassment are more likely to have subordinates who report harassment (Offermann & Malamut, 2002 ). Organizational factors appear to be so important that Bergman et al. ( 2002 ) noted that a climate intolerant of harassment is essential because it (a) reduces the harassment in the organization, (b) increases the likelihood of reporting when it does occur, and (c) increases the likelihood that organizations will respond appropriately to those reports.

Organizational Responses to Reporting

When targets of harassment report their experiences to the organization, the organization can make any number of responses (Knapp, Faley, Ekeberg, & DuBois, 1997 ). First is investigation; organizations can intake the report and deploy human resources representatives to investigate to determine whether organizational rules have been broken (Pustolka, 2015 ; Trotter & Zacur, 2012 ). There has been surprisingly little research on sexual harassment investigations. One recent study, however, demonstrates that organizational tolerance for sexual harassment suppresses both learning of sexual harassment investigation skills and the motivation to learn these skills (Goldberg, Perry, & Rawski, 2018 ).

Note, however, that organizations are not required to investigate sexual harassment allegations. It is possible that their policies do not require it (Pustolka, 2015 ). Additionally, the process is a human process, prone to the cognitive errors and biases of human decision makers. Thus, a different response is minimization: organizational representatives could encourage the reporter to drop the complaint or could respond that the complaint is not serious enough to warrant an investigation (Bergman et al., 2002 ). This minimization could happen at the time of the report, making an investigation unlikely to occur, or it could happen during (e.g., through investigator behavior) or after the investigation. In the latter case, it is possible that the report is unsubstantiated, so the reporter has the experience that the complaint was minimized when in actuality the complaint did not meet the standards for concern within the organization. Organizations that are more tolerant of sexual harassment are more likely to use minimization (Bergman et al., 2002 ). Additionally, as the perpetrators’ rank in the organization increases, the use of minimization also increases (Bergman et al., 2002 ).

Organizations could also retaliate against the reporter (Bergman et al., 2002 ). This could again happen at the time of the complaint or during or following an investigation. Retaliation can occur both formally (e.g., reassignment to a different unit in the organization) or informally (e.g., hostile treatment from co-workers; Bergman et al., 2002 ). Unsurprisingly, like the finding for minimization, retaliation is more common when organizations are more tolerant of sexual harassment and when the perpetrator’s rank is higher (Bergman et al., 2002 ).

Organizations can also make positive responses to the report, notably remediation (Bergman et al., 2002 ). Organizational remedies are actions taken against the perpetrator, including informal discussions about behavior, formal notes in employment files, reassignment to other work units or positions, and terminating the employment relationship. Remedies are more common when organizations are less tolerant of sexual harassment and when the perpetrator is lower in organizational rank (Bergman et al., 2002 ). Despite the positive response of organizational remedies, it has less effect on procedural satisfaction with the reporting process than do either retaliation or minimization (Bergman et al., 2002 ). It seems, then, that it is as important—if not more so—to reduce negative responses to sexual harassment reports than to increase positive responses.

At best, reporting sexual harassment does not make things worse for the reporter, but unfortunately it often does; there is no evidence to indicate that reporting actually improves well-being or job attitudes (Adams-Roy & Barling, 1998 ; Bell, Street, & Stafford, 2014 ; Bergman et al., 2002 ; Brooks & Perot, 1991 ; Firestone & Harris, 2003 ; Hesson-McInnis & Fitzgerald, 1997 ; Malamut & Offermann, 2001 ). Following a report of sexual harassment, people are affected by whether the harassment has been adequately addressed. For instance, if it is perceived that the harassment has been addressed, targets of sexual harassment are likely to have fewer symptoms of PTSD and depression and better well-being and post-harassment functioning (Bell et al., 2014 ). Therefore, it is not simply reporting harassment that can improve well-being for the target of sexual harassment, but the target’s perceptions and satisfaction with the reporting process (Bergman et al., 2002 ).

Sexual harassment research spans the methodological spectrum, including qualitative (Good & Cooper, 2014 ), experimental (Bursik, 1992 ; Burgess & Borgida, 1997 ; Pryor, 1987 ), historical (Segrave, 1994 ), legal (Conte, 2010 ), and quantitative methods. Because this review focuses primarily on the psychological aspects of sexual harassment in the workplace, quantitative methods common to psychological research, particularly surveys, predominate. The use of quantitative survey methods leads to queries about two key issues: measurement of sexual harassment and survey construction. Although psychological research in general and the study of sexual harassment in particular use experiments, within the sexual harassment literature these experiments are nearly uniformly vignette studies or “paper people” and do not align well with the lived experiences of sexual harassment targets. (For an exception, see Pryor, 1987 , for an experiment in which sexually harassing behaviors were induced in a laboratory setting.)

Measurement of Sexual Harassment

There are two primary ways of measuring sexual harassment (Culbertson & Rosenfeld, 1993 ): direct query and behavioral experiences. In the direct query method, people are only counted as having experienced sexual harassment if they respond affirmatively to an item such as “Have you been sexually harassed at work?” With the behavioral experiences method, participants indicate which of a list of behaviors they have experienced; they are counted as having been sexually harassed through their responses (i.e., greater than zero). The behavioral experience methods count a person as harassed even if the person does not label it as such (i.e., says “no” to a direct query item).

Considering the differences in methods, it is not surprising that the behavioral experiences approach results in counting more people as harassed than does the direct query method (Ilies et al., 2003 ). Interestingly, both the direct query and behavioral experiences approach result in similar relationships between sexual harassment and a variety of outcomes (Sojo et al., 2016 ). Within the behavioral experiences approach, the predominant measure of sexual harassment is the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (Fitzgerald et al., 1995 ; Fitzgerald et al., 1999 ). However, although it is the most commonly used behavioral experiences measure, there seems to be little substantive difference between using the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire and other behavioral measures in the ability to predict outcomes (Willness et al., 2007 ; Sojo et al., 2016 ).

In commentaries on the sexual harassment literature, theorists point out that there is often inconsistency in the definitions of sexual harassment used across studies and in the behaviors included in the specific operationalizations of behavioral experiences measures (Arvey & Cavanaugh, 1995 ; Fitzgerald & Shullman, 1993 ; Lengnick-Hall, 1995 ; Nye, Brummel, & Drasgow, 2014 ; Timmerman & Bajema, 1999 ). These definitional differences likely produce some discrepancies in the sexual harassment literature, particularly regarding incidence and prevalence of sexual harassment experiences (Ilies et al., 2003 ). Incidence and prevalence rates are typically lower in studies using the direct query method as opposed to those using behavioral experiences methods (Ilies et al., 2003 ; Timmerman & Bajema, 1999 ).

Unsurprisingly, there is considerable debate regarding whether direct query or behavioral experiences methods provide the “true score” rate of sexual harassment. On the one hand, the direct query method asks people to indicate exactly what the researchers want to know: Has sexual harassment occurred? On the other hand, the direct query method is problematic because people often do not know the definition of sexual harassment, or they recognize that their experiences do not meet legal standards of harassment even though they are distressing (Fitzgerald & Shullman, 1993 ). Thus, despite the apparent simplicity of the direct query method, there is considerable room for interpretation (Lengnick-Hall, 1995 ). However, there are still opportunities for interpretation in behavioral experiences methods, such as when an item asks whether a person has heard “suggestive” or “offensive” jokes and stories (Ilies et al., 2003 ). This is considered by some to be a strength of the behavioral experiences approach, because it encourages respondents to ignore jokes and stories that were not offensive (Fitzgerald et al., 1995 ; Fitzgerald & Shullman, 1993 ). On the whole, it seems that the better practice is to use a well-validated behavioral experiences method and, when possible, to also include a direct query.

Beyond the measurement of the frequency of sexual harassment experiences, it is also important to investigate other aspects of sexually harassing behaviors. Arvey and Cavanaugh ( 1995 ), for example, suggested that measures of behavior severity should be taken into account. Consistent with this idea, Berdahl (Berdahl, 2007b ; Berdahl & Moore, 2006 ) incorporated a multiplier when using the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire that measured how bothersome each specific behavior (i.e., item) was, which was then used to create a weighted scale score for sexual harassment. Measures of primary appraisal (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984 ) and other indicators of severity have also been used to either multiply or modify measures of sexual harassment (e.g., Bergman et al., 2002 ; Fitzgerald & Shullman, 1993 ; Langhout et al., 2005 ).

Survey Research on Sexual Harassment

Like most survey research, surveys on sexual harassment commonly ask respondents about retrospective accounts of sexual harassment. Oftentimes, researchers specify a length of time or specific markers (e.g., “since joining this organization”). This common practice is useful for narrowing the scope of research and being able to draw conclusions about a particular work environment. For example, an organization might design a survey to ask about sexual harassment in the last year at that organization, rather than lifetime experiences of sexual harassment (e.g., “Have you ever experienced sexual harassment?”) in order to assess the current state of sexual harassment prevalence within the organization. However, it is difficult to compare incidence and prevalence rates that use different time periods for sexual harassment (Timmerman & Bajema, 1999 ).

Additionally, the design of the survey is important to gain participation (Miner-Rubino & Jayaratne, 2011 ). Sexual harassment surveys can be off-putting to potential participants, reducing their likelihood in participating (Galesic & Tourangeau, 2007 ). This is especially concerning because those who choose not to respond to a survey on sexual harassment may be the people with the most severe or frequent experiences. The frame of a survey can include the survey title, topic, purpose, or sponsor. Each of these features may influence how people respond to a survey by providing an interpretive framework for the study and facilitating recall of events, and should therefore be considered carefully during survey creation (Galesic & Tourangeau, 2007 ).

Sexual harassment survey research is typically cross-sectional, meaning that all measurements are collected from participants at one specific point in time (i.e., both the “predictors” and the “outcomes” are in the same survey). Even though theory and evidence indicate the likely causal ordering of sexual harassment, its causes, and its consequences, cross-sectional surveys cannot provide evidence of causality (Cook, Campbell, & Shadish, 2002 ). Moreover, cross-sectional surveys are unable to document the lasting effects of sexual harassment on a person’s well-being (Munson et al., 2000 ). Longitudinal methodology, where measurements are collected from participants at multiple points in time, provides a rich resource of information concerning the evolution of these experiences (McDonald, 2012 ). As with any longitudinal research, there are challenges in longitudinal sexual harassment research (e.g., respondents not returning for Time 2, history effects). However, longitudinal approaches provide a closer approximation to causal studies than do cross-sectional studies (Cook et al., 2002 ).

Qualitative Research on Sexual Harassment

A full treatment of qualitative research, its wide variety of approaches, and their epistemological underpinnings is beyond the scope of this review. However, it is important to acknowledge that qualitative research can obtain a richer understanding of participant experiences than quantitative approaches (e.g., behavioral experience measures). One suggestion that may benefit researchers is using a mixed methods approach, where qualitative methods and quantitative methods supplement each other (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004 ; McDonald, 2012 ). Furthermore, when studying forms of sexual harassment that have received less empirical attention, it may be beneficial to use qualitative or ethnographic methods in order to better define these experiences and understand those who have been targets (Miner-Rubino & Jayaratne, 2011 ). In particular, examining the intersectional experiences of harassment targets (e.g., Buchanan, 2005 ; Buchanan & Ormerod, 2002 ) through qualitative methods might be useful. Qualitative research is also well suited to research questions that explore the role that sexual harassment plays in people’s life histories (McLaughlin et al., 2017 ). Although this could be accomplished in quantitative research, qualitative research allows people to tell their stories as they experienced them, rather than conform to the predetermined questions on a survey.

Sampling in Sexual Harassment Survey Research

Sampling methods used in sexual harassment research are another important consideration. Research on sampling methods has shown that random sampling may produce fewer reports of sexual harassment than when using non-random sampling (Timmerman & Bajema, 1999 ). In their meta-analysis, Ilies et al. ( 2003 ) found that non-probability sampling (compared to probability sampling) produced higher reports of sexual harassment when behavioral experiences methods were used, but lower reports of sexual harassment when direct query methods were used.

Concerns remain about using non-random sampling. Arvey and Cavanaugh’s ( 1995 ) evaluation of sexual harassment methodology highlighted the frequent use of convenience samples and the difficulty of low response rates. A primary concern of non-random sampling is possible selection bias, or the over-inclusion of people who have experienced sexual harassment relative to the population (Arvey & Cavanaugh, 1995 ; Timmerman & Bajema, 1999 ).

However, it is also important to consider why purposive sampling can be useful. In particular, the need to account for intersectional narratives of sexual harassment might require intentional over-inclusion of particular subgroups in a sample. As with research using other non-probability samples, research on sexual harassment should be cautious about drawing population-level conclusions when non-probability samples are used.

Research on Perpetrators of Harassment

Although the research on the experiences of targets of sexual harassment has proliferated, there is a notable paucity of studies on harassers themselves (Pina, Gannon, & Saunders, 2009 ). This is likely due to the difficulties associated with sampling perpetrators. To study sexual harassers, participants would have to admit to committing these offenses without fear of stigmatization or legal recourse. It would be unlikely to find a representative sample of these individuals who would be willing to answer these surveys honestly. Nevertheless, the experiences and motives of sexual harassers are needed facets of research in the literature. Particularly, for researchers interested in interventions, studying those who do the harassing may provide a rich source of information to further support theoretical models. The onus for behavioral change can then be placed on the perpetrators of these behaviors instead of on defensive strategies for targets.

Looking Forward: What More Do We Need to Know?

As reviewed here, it is clear that sexual harassment is common enough to be concerning to organizations. Additionally, it is damaging to targets’ well-being. Sexual harassment is also damaging to organizational productivity. Sexual harassment is a gendered experience. People who have more minoritized demographic markers are more likely to experience sexual harassment. Organizations that tolerate sexual harassment have more of it occurring and respond to reports of harassment in worse ways.

Even with all that is known about harassment, there are still many unknowns. One interesting avenue forward is local culture, outside the organization but more localized than a country. How do localized norms of behavior and gender norms influence the experience of sexual harassment? It is possible that these norms influence both the rate of sexual harassment and the types of harassment experienced. Additionally, the relative tolerance of sexual harassment in the organization and the context in which it is embedded (e.g., the industry, the local area) could influence organizational reputation, willingness to report, and other key factors for the organization. A key example of this is the “bro culture” of Silicon Valley start-ups compared with the gender equality in the same area of the country (Chang, 2018 ; Kurtzleben, 2011 ).

Additionally, there has been little attention to the notion of consent in regards to sexual harassment in workplaces. People may choose to “go along” with sexually harassing behaviors because of the power dynamics inherent in many organizations. However, this does not mean that these individuals have provided consent. This raises the question of whether individuals with less organizational power can ever provide consent to a person holding organizational power and their economic fate over them. There may be situations where consent cannot be freely given and where power differences create environments in which targets may engage in behaviors because they feel that they have no other choice. On the one hand, this is a hallmark of any sexual harassment research (i.e., unwelcome and unwanted behaviors). On the other hand, a deeper understanding of power and consent in the workplace could provide insights into how to provide effective anti-harassment training and how to stop sexual harassment.

Little is known about how public events related to sexual harassment affect sexual harassment in the workplace. This is particularly notable at this historical moment, following the recent rise of the #MeToo movement on social media. Whereas the Me Too movement originated with the efforts of Tarana Burke in 2006 (Johnson & Hawbaker, 2019 ), the confluence of harassment allegations against numerous public figures and social media practices led in fall 2017 to the #MeToo social media campaign to raise awareness of the ubiquity of workplace sexual harassment (Kantor & Twohey, 2017 ). It is as yet unknown what the #MeToo movement will do to influence workplace sexual harassment and gendered relationships. For example, the #MeToo movement might usher in a shift in disclosure practices, whereby individuals post about sexual harassment incidents in private and public online forums. Further, the disclosures that occurred during the height of #MeToo could make future disclosures (whether online or through organizational processes) more likely, as people might expect that they will be believed when they make sexual harassment accusations. Yet there are already concerns about the unintentional consequences of the #MeToo movement, such that some men are overreacting to the #MeToo wave and fear spending one-on-one time with female colleagues and subordinates in the workplace (Bennold, 2019 ). This historical moment is ripe with opportunity to examine and understand how public events and discourse about sexual harassment affect sexual harassment in the workplace.

Finally, it is important to note that sexual harassment research has been conducted around the world, but primarily in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe, with additional research arising from Asia. The construction of gender within different cultures is not homogenous, and therefore the influence of sociocultural hierarchies of gender on sexual harassment would be context specific. In addition, the legal definitions of sexual harassment can vary widely across countries, with some countries lacking a language or legal basis against sexual harassment. Although the review herein suggests that regardless of whether there is a legal definition or a label for harassment, it is damaging to the people who experience it, this is not yet fully documented. Further research is needed throughout the world, particularly in Africa, South America, and developing economies.

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1. The term “minoritized” is used rather than the more common term “minority.” The term “minority” reflects the numerical representation in a group (i.e., less than half, but in particular smaller than another subgroup that is the “majority” of members of a larger group) and the lesser status that the group holds in society. However, many groups are not the numerical minority but are still considered “lesser” (e.g., low income workers, women). Additionally, people are not consistently in the minority (e.g., in their families vs. in the workplace; depending on reference group, for example that African-Americans are a numerical minority in Tennessee as a whole, but not in Memphis, a city in Tennessee that is nearly 10% of that state’s population [U.S. Census Bureau, 2013–2017 ]), so the minoritization of people is an active process rather than a simple description of their experiences or numerical location in society. The term minority implies that the lesser status is a function of the small number, that is, if there were more people from the “minority group” within the larger group, then they would have greater power and equal power when the numbers are equal. This perspective overlooks the institutional and structural inequalities that exist which prevent equal power even when numerical constituencies are equal. For a review of this term and examples of how this term influences research questions and approaches, see Harper ( 2013 ), Tolbert ( 2015 ), and Vaccaro and Camba-Kelsay ( 2018 ).

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Discrimination, Harassment, Abuse and Bullying in the Workplace: Contribution of Workplace Injustice to Occupational Health Disparities

Cassandra a. okechukwu.

1 Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Kerry Souza

2 Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations and Field Studies, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Kelly D. Davis

3 Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States

A. Butch de Castro

4 Department of Psychosocial and Community Health, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States

This paper synthesizes research on the contribution of workplace injustices – discrimination, harassment, abuse and bullying – to occupational health disparities. A conceptual framework is presented to illustrate the pathways through which injustices at the interpersonal and institutional level lead to differential risk of vulnerable workers to adverse occupational health outcomes. Members of demographic minority groups are more likely to be victims of workplace injustice and suffer more adverse outcomes when exposed to workplace injustice compared to demographic majority groups. A growing body of research links workplace injustice to poor psychological and physical health, and a smaller body of evidence links workplace injustice to unhealthy behaviors. Although not as well studied, studies also show that workplace injustice can influence workers’ health through effects on workers’ family life and job-related outcomes. Lastly, this paper discusses methodological limitations in research linking injustices and occupational health disparities and makes recommendations to improve the state of research.

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this paper was to synthesize and evaluate research demonstrating how workplace injustice – discrimination, harassment, abuse and bullying –may contribute to occupational health disparities. Reflecting historical and current societal power imbalances, forces within and outside workplaces can result in the mistreatment of workers (individually or as a group) through unjust practices [ Jones 2000 , Turney 2003 , Hodson, et al. 2006 , Lopez, et al. 2009 ]. We theorize that mistreatment of workers in the workplace may exacerbate health disparities between groups of workers. We reviewed the peer-reviewed literature reporting direct and indirect associations of workplace injustices with health outcomes. The extant literature contains a diffuse body of work on workplace injustice from different disciplines; many of which are unrelated to health. Our synthesis is limited to papers that present evidence of the contribution of workplace injustice to occupational health disparities. Our review led us to propose a conceptual framework ( Figure 1 ) to illustrate the various relationships suggested by research studies. To complement conceptual models that illustrate relationships between other workplace factors and health, this model illustrates pathways between workplace injustices and health outcomes that are supported by the extant scientific literature. Our starting point for a conceptual framework for the contributions of work to health disparities is the Ecosocial approach advanced by Krieger [ Krieger 1994 , Krieger, et al. 2008 ].

A Model for understanding the contribution of workplace injustice to occupational health disparities

In summarizing this evidence, we acknowledge the vast literature on workplace/organizational justice that describes employees’ perceptions of equity between workers’ input and workplace procedures, interactions and outcomes [ Elovainio, et al. 2002 ]. Although this literature is relevant to the health of workers, our discussion does not extend to this topic.

Workplace Injustices: Definitions and Scope

Definitions and scope of workplace injustice(s) differ according to the discipline and body of literature reviewed. The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) protects workers from injustice based on age, disability, gender/sex, genetic information, national origin, pregnancy, race/color, or religion (2011). Though excluded from this EEOC definition, other federal agencies and some state and local laws also protect workers from workplace injustice based on sexual orientation and gender identity. For the purposes of this paper, we defined workplace injustice as workplace-related discrimination, harassment, abuse or bullying. We considered how these injustices, including bullying which is usually status-blind, might differentially impact workers who are socially disadvantaged. Perpetration of workplace injustice can occur at the institutional or interpersonal level.

Institutional or structural injustice

Jones’ (2000) characterization of institutional racism as structurally constructed differential access to societal opportunities, goods and services can be applied to the characterization of institutional workplace injustice. This injustice is “normative, sometimes legalized” and “structural, having been codified in our institutions of custom, practice, and law, so there need not be an identifiable perpetrator” (p. 1212). Institutional injustice can persist even after levels of individual injustice have lessened in a society [ Williams and Mohammed 2009 ].

Interpersonal injustice

At the individual/interpersonal level, workplace injustice can be intentional or unintentional and encompasses acts of commission and omission. Studies have documented a range of such unfair practices faced by vulnerable workers, from isolating or excluding socially/economically disadvantaged workers from workplace events and activities to subjecting them to overtly hostile actions and behaviors (e.g. being subjected to insults and jokes related to one's race/ethnicity). Studies suggest that African-American and other racial/ethnic minority workers are more likely to report being targets of derogatory comments and having their work duties and activities made difficult by others [ Alleyne 2004 ; Raver and Nishii 2010 ].

Types of Workplace Injustice

Workplace discrimination refers to actions of institutions and/or individuals within them, setting unfair terms and conditions that systematically impair the ability of members of a group to work [ Rospenda, et al. 2009 ]. Often, it is motivated by beliefs of inferiority of a disadvantaged outgroup compared to a dominant group [ Roberts, et al. 2004 ]. Racism, or discrimination based on race, justifies the mistreatment and dominance of members of a particular racial or ethnic group due to beliefs of their genetic and/or cultural inferiority; it also carries a history of societal power relationships between races [ Williams 1997 ]. Discrimination can also occur between disadvantaged groups themselves. For example, de Castro et al. (2006) found that some ethnic groups were favored over others among immigrant worker groups. This favoritism was initiated and perpetuated by both coworkers and employers/supervisors alike [ de Castro, et al. 2006 ]. Latino indigenous-speaking farm workers in Oregon reported differentially distributed hazardous work conditions, including lack of educational materials in languages they understood, between themselves and Spanish-speaking workers; they also reported that these conditions were often perpetrated by Spanish-speaking Latino former farmworkers who had risen through the ranks to become supervisors [ Farquhar, et al. 2008 ]. Similarly, in a study of 356 African-American workers, 43% of the 219 workers who reported workplace discrimination reported that the perpetrators included fellow African-Americans [ Din-Dzietham, et al. 2004 ].

Discrimination against workers with disabilities, younger and older workers, and gender persists, as well. Studies have shown that discrimination against workers with disabilities has both societal and historical influences and persists despite being prohibited by the Americans with Disabilities Act [ Scheid 2005 , Stuart 2006 , Snyder, et al. 2010 , Moore, et al. 2011 ]. Ageism, discrimination based on age, has been shown to have a curvilinear life course trajectory whereby it disproportionately impacts younger workers in their 20s and older workers above 50 [ Gee, et al. 2007 ].

Workplace harassment differs from discrimination because it involves negative actions toward a worker due to attributes, such as race/ethnicity, gender etc., that lead to a hostile workplace whereas discrimination involves unequal treatment or limiting of opportunities due to these attributes [ Rospenda et al, 2009 ]. Harassment must target workers’ protected EEOC status in order to meet the US legal definition [ Ehrenreich 1999 , Carbo 2008 ]. Sexual harassment is a type of workplace harassment that is typically characterized along gender/sex lines [ Pina et al, 2009 ]. Fitzgerald and colleagues (1999) delineated four types of sexual harassment—sexist behavior, sexual hostility, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. Sexist behaviors describe actions in which one's gender or sex is the primary target of discrimination [ Fitzgerald, et al. 1999 ]. This overlap in definition can make distinguishing between gender discrimination versus harassment difficult. The other three describe experiences that are more physical and sexual in nature.

Workplace bullying or abuse involves actions that offend or socially exclude a worker or group of workers, or actions that have a negative effect on the person or group's work tasks [ Grubb, et al. 2004 ]. These actions are often status-blind and occur repeatedly and regularly over a period of time [ Grubb, et al. 2004 ]. The actions taken and workers’ sensitivity to them can vary according to culture [ Cassitto, et al. 2003 ].

PATHWAYS: FROM INJUSTICE TO HEALTH DISPARITIES

Conceptual framework.

Using Ecosocial theory of disease distribution as a basis [ Krieger 1994 , Krieger, et al. 2008 ], we present a working model ( Figure 1 ) to illustrate potential pathways linking workplace injustice exposures and health disparities. In the following section, we define components of our model and discuss evidence from the literature to support the pathways between them. Our model is not a causal diagram; presence of arrows between components in the model does not imply that causal analyses have been conducted.

Labor stratification into Hazardous Positions

Our conceptual model ( Figure 1 ) shows labor stratification, in which minority and other disadvantaged workers are systematically hired into certain (usually lower power) positions [ Landsbergis, Grzywacz, & LaMontagne, 2012 ]. Labor stratification has been documented to occur upstream, before entry into the labor force, through unfair access to or denial of employment opportunities. Experimental studies have documented employers responding negatively to job applicants based on age, gender, race, and sexual orientation, thereby discriminating against or preferentially hiring applicants for certain types of jobs [ Crow, et al. 1998 , Hebl, et al. 2002 , Horvath and Ryan 2003 , Pager 2003 , Bertrand and Mullainathan 2004 , Pager, et al. 2009 ]. Other studies, based on self-report, have also found discrimination and bias in hiring and/or promotion based on sexual orientation and age of applicants [ Johnson and Neumark 1996 , Badgett, et al. 2007 ]. An analysis of court cases showed that, in some fields, women may encounter a “maternal wall,” whereby they are denied employment and/or promotion due to pregnancy or childbirth [ Williams and Westfall 2006 ].

The occupational health literature supports the observation that racial/ethnic minorities and immigrants are often over-represented in jobs with poorer working conditions [ Frumkin, et al. 1999 , Murray 2003 , Agudelo-Suarez, et al. 2009 , Berdahl 2008 ]. Among African-Americans, Haggerty and Johnson (1995) point out that labor stratification is part of broader societal level injustices, notably poor educational systems thereby predisposing African-American workers to limited, hazardous, poor-quality job opportunities in adulthood [ Haggerty and Johnson 1995 ].

Differential Assignment to Hazardous Duties

Even when workers are in the same occupational position, some workers are directly exposed to more occupational hazards through assignment of the most hazardous duties to socially and economically disadvantaged populations, thus increasing their risk for work-related injury or illness [ Murray 2003 , de Castro, et al. 2006 , Farquhar, et al. 2008 , Delp, et al. 2009 , Shannon, et al. 2009 ]. An early documented example is that of the Gauley Bridge/Hawk's Nest tunnel disaster in 1930 [ Cherniack 1986 ]. Although various explanations for disproportionate incidence of pneumoconiosis and associated death among African-American compared to White workers were posited, an examination of job placement of workers in the mine revealed race-based job assignment as the root cause. African-American workers were de facto assigned to the deepest, dustiest parts of the tunnel, while White workers were more likely to be assigned to work outside.

Available evidence suggests that, after controlling for differences in education and experience, African-American and Hispanic workers are consistently more likely to be employed in occupations where serious injuries and illnesses are more likely to occur [ Robinson 1984 , Robinson 1987 , Loomis and Richardson 1998 , Shannon, et al. 2009 ]. However, the social forces behind disproportionate exposures of minority worker groups to occupational hazards may be complex. An analysis of illnesses and injury rates over a 10-year period showed that disparities were dynamic and sometimes disappear when researchers control for job characteristics such as work schedule, union representation, health insurance and job hours [ Berdahl 2008 ].

A U.S. study of a unionized, multi-ethnic working class sample found that 85% of workers reported high exposure to at least one occupational hazard [ Quinn, et al. 2007 ]. A similar proportion of this same group of workers was exposed to one of three workplace injustices (bullying, sexual harassment, or racial discrimination) [ Krieger, et al. 2006 ]. Analyses of the same sample showed that exposure to occupational hazards was unevenly distributed based on race and gender: Being a minority in any way increased workers’ chances of being exposed to hazards [ Barbeau, et al. 2007 , Krieger, et al. 2005 , Krieger, et al. 2006 , Krieger, et al. 2008 , Krieger, et al. 2010 ].

Though empirical evidence is limited, some researchers have suggested that differential enforcement of occupational health and safety regulations or policies in industries and occupations where minority workers predominate may be another mechanism for disparities. One example is the OSHA exemption for farms with less than ten employees. Somervell and Conway (2011) showed that worker fatality rates in states that observe this exemption were higher than in states that do not. U.S. farm workers are largely immigrant, Latino workers [ Farquhar, et al. 2008 , Somervell and Conway 2011 ]. Other researchers have noted that a majority of the workers impacted by the suspension of both prevailing wage policies and enforcement of occupational safety and health regulations during the Hurricane Katrina and Rita cleanup process were Hispanic day laborers [ Delp et al, 2009 ; Pastor et al, 2006 ]. A more thorough analysis of the policies and decisions surrounding disaster cleanup events is needed to determine whether or not policies and decisions differentially impact minority workers.

The extent to which occupational factors contribute to overall health is inadequately described, but we hypothesize, based on our review of literature, that it is possible that differential exposure to occupational hazards among minority workers may be a significant contributor to the overall experience of health disparities. Several studies have explored the relative importance of work exposures to overall health, and the findings are intriguing. For example, a recent examination of government employees in an European city found that physical conditions at work explained most of the observed occupational class inequalities in health [ Kaikkonen, et al. 2009 ]. Likewise, a French study found a social gradient in exposure to physical, ergonomic and chemical hazards in addition to a gradient in experiences of workplace bullying, in which managers and professionals were less likely to be exposed to any hazard compared to associate professionals/technicians, clerks/service workers, and blue-collar workers [ Niedhammer, et al. 2008 ]. Similar studies with US samples could not be found. More research studies, in cohorts for which detailed occupation information is available, must be conducted to help explain observed differences in health outcomes.

PATHWAYS FROM EXPOSURE TO OUTCOME

Potential modifiers.

Some studies have identified factors that appear to modify observed effects of workplace injustices on health and other outcomes. In Figure 1 , these factors are represented as potential modifiers. Workplace injustice may further contribute to health disparities by having differential effects on disadvantaged populations compared to dominant groups. For example, racial/ethnic minorities have been reported to have increased risks of the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)-related effects when exposed to workplace bullying [ Rodríguez-Muñoz, et al. 2010 ]. Similarly, in another study, even though experiences of workplace bullying were significantly associated with negative emotional reactions for all targets, African-Americans reported significantly higher emotional response to racial/ethnic bullying compared to other groups [ Fox and Stallworth 2005 ]. Also, generalized bullying has been associated with higher numbers of psychological symptoms and increases in drinking to intoxication for women compared to men [ Rospenda, et al. 2009 ]. In contrast, an Italian study found that men were more likely to develop depressive disorder with increasing severity of bullying [ Nolfe, et al. 2010 ].

A study by Krieger (1990) demonstrated how keeping quiet about experiences of discrimination may take a toll on health. African-American women who did not tell others about the unfair treatment they received were four times more likely to report high blood pressure than women who told others (a similar association was not significant for White women) [ Krieger 1990 ]. Likewise, one study found that while lack of equality was associated with poorer self-reported health for both men and women, women's health was influenced when inequality existed for men and/or women whereas men's was only affected when men were the victims of inequality [ Bildt 2005 ].

Stress-Mediated Pathway

In Figure 1 , the main pathway linking exposures to workplace injustice and health outcomes is via stress. Evidence for this pathway in the model is derived from the psychological literature supporting the “stressor-stress-strain” framework. According to work by Lazarus and Folkman (1984) , negative health effects result when an individual perceives situational demands as stressful and this stress experience exceeds their capacity to cope [ Lazarus and Folkman 1984 ]. Experiences of discrimination, harassment and bullying in the workplace can operate as stressors provoking a psychological and/or physiological stress response. There is strong empirical evidence that psychological stress can affect biological host resistance through the activation of neuroendocrinological and immunological responses [ Cohen, et al. 2007 ]. The activation of these responses can include disturbances in the circadian cortisol profile, which several studies have found among targets of workplace injustice [ Kudielka and Kern 2004 , Huebner and Davis 2005 , Hansen, et al. 2006 , Townsend, et al. 2011 ]. These types of disruptions in cortisol have been shown to lead to a multitude of chronic negative health conditions [ Cohen, et al. 2007 ]. More studies are needed to directly and clearly show the link from exposure to workplace injustice to physiological responses and, in turn, to negative health outcomes.

OUTCOMES: CONTRIBUTIONS OF INJUSTICE TO HEALTH DISPARITES

Health outcomes.

The broader literature on stress and health has established links between experiences of discrimination and harassment and adverse health outcomes. Workplace injustices have been directly associated with three types of outcomes: psychological and physical health, health behaviors, and job outcomes. There is a small but suggestive body of evidence suggesting a fourth outcome—family well-being. These outcomes can be seen on the right-hand side of our model ( Figure 1 ).

Several cross-sectional studies have found evidence of symptoms and diagnosis of PTSD among workers exposed to workplace bullying and sexual harassment [ Leymann and Gustafsson 1996 , Schneider, et al. 1997 , Mikkelsen and Einarsen 2002 , Matthiesen and Einarsen 2004 , Tehrani 2004 , Willness, et al. 2007 , Buchanan and Fitzgerald 2008 , Larsen and Fitzgerald 2010 , Rodríguez-Muñoz, et al. 2010 ]. In explaining how bullying may lead to PTSD, Einarsen and colleague (2003) posit that although the experience of workplace injustice is often not life-threatening, the experience threatens the inner world of the target by shattering basic cognitive schema about fairness and justice and negatively influences one's social and personal identity leading to PTSD.

A meta-analysis of the antecedents and consequences of sexual harassment found evidence for the association of sexual harassment with general poor mental health [ Willness, et al. 2007 ]. Although anxiety and depression were the most prevalent conditions, the strongest evidence of effect was found for PTSD [ Willness, et al. 2007 ]. These symptoms may be worsened for minorities through an interactive effect of sexual and racial/ethnic harassment [ Buchanan and Fitzgerald 2008 ].

Another mechanism through which minority workers might experience more severe outcomes is through attribution. A study, which included a meta-analysis, showed that social context (e.g. gender or racial composition of workplace) influenced workers’ attribution of their experiences of injustice; attribution in turn impacted the severity of outcomes with internal and personal attribution leading to worse health outcomes [ Hershcovis & Barling, 2010 ]. An association between workplace bullying and short- and long-term change in psychological distress and depression has been shown with both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies [ Kivimäki, et al. 2003 , Hogh, et al. 2005 , Nolfe, et al. 2010 ]. One longitudinal study suggested the possibility of a cyclical relationship in which developing depression increased the risk of workers becoming targets of bullying, which then increased depressive symptoms [ Kivimäki, et al. 2000 ]. However, worker inputs to injustice exposures are not represented on our conceptual model and are beyond the scope of this review.

Evidence from cross-sectional studies suggests that workers who experience racial/ethnic discrimination in the workplace suffer a range of negative psychological health outcomes, such as more days of poor mental health [ Roberts, et al. 2004 ], psychological distress [ Eaton 2003 , Krieger, et al. 2010 ], anxiety and depression [ Bhui et al, 2005 , Agudelo-Suarez, et al. 2009 , Hammond, et al. 2010 , Raver and Nishii 2010 ], negative emotions [ Fox and Stallworth 2005 ], and emotional trauma [ Alleyne 2004 ]. Although these studies utilized self–report of discrimination, experimental research has provided added evidence for the influence of work-related racial discrimination on mental health [ Salvatore and Shelton 2007 ]. Workplace ageism has been linked to psychological distress among older workers [ Yuan 2007 ]. This might particularly impact older women [ Encel and Studencki 1997 , Handy and Davy 2007 , Walker, et al. 2007 ]. A review of literature elucidated how ageism and sexism may operate concomitantly to negatively influence the health of older working women [ Payne and Doyal 2010 ].

Other studies suggest somatic health effects of workplace injustice. An experimental study found that working under an unfavorable supervisor (whose actions included bullying) led to clinically significant increases in workers’ blood pressure [ Wager, et al. 2003 ]. Cross-sectional studies provide other evidence of an association between workplace injustice and somatic health. Those who experience racial discrimination may be at increased risk for work-related injury or illness [ Murray 2003 , de Castro, et al. 2006 , Farquhar, et al. 2008 , Delp, et al. 2009 , Shannon, et al. 2009 ]. Racial/ethnic discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying have been negatively associated with self-rated health and unhealthy days [ Krieger 1999 , Nazroo 2003 , Gunnarsdottir, et al. 2006 , Fujishiro 2009 , de Castro, et al. 2010 ] while racial discrimination and workplace bullying were associated with bodily pain [ Burgess, et al. 2009 , Saastamoinen, et al. 2009 ]. Sexual harassment has also been linked to a host of physical health symptoms, including headaches, stomach aches and disrupted sleep [ Gutek and Koss 1993 , Goldenhar, et al. 1998 , Magley, et al. 1999 , Wasti, et al. 2000 , Willness, et al. 2007 ].

Non-targeted witnesses of workplace injustice may also be at risk for adverse health outcomes. Non-bullied witnesses to workplace bullying reported more anxiety [ Hansen, et al. 2006 ], and, workers who witnessed repeated bullying in their workplace were almost twice more likely to report acute pain than those who did not witness it [ Saastamoinen, et al. 2009 ]. A U.S. study found that bullying witnesses reported better outcomes (work quality and health) than bullying victims; however, witnesses’ outcomes were worse than those of non-witnesses [ Lutgen-Sandvik, et al. 2007 ]. Among a sample of female employees in a public utility and food processing plant, Glomb and colleagues found that observing sexual harassment was linked to lower psychological well-being, similar to individuals who experienced the harassment directly [ Glomb, et al. 1997 ]. Another study found that observing the mistreatment was linked to poor psychological well-being, even after controlling for one's own experiences [ Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2004 , Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2007 ]. Researchers have posited that the influence on bystander health is partly because bystanders develop a fear of becoming a target [ Hoel, et al. 2004 ]. Yet to be evaluated is whether bystander effects are worse when the witnesses are members of the same disadvantaged group as the target.

Health Behaviors

Experiencing workplace injustice may lead to unhealthy behaviors that likely operate as maladaptive coping mechanisms. Evidence from the stress and health literature suggests that stress influences health through changes in health behavior [ Steptoe, et al. 1998 , Droomers, et al. 1999 , Epel, et al. 2000 , Ng and Jeffery 2003 ]. Recent research suggests similar processes with workplace injustice. For example, workplace racial discrimination has been associated with smoking [ Okechukwu, et al. 2010 ], and heavy alcohol use has been linked to sexual harassment among women [ Gradus, et al. 2008 ] and to workplace bullying [ Rospenda, et al. 2009 ].

Job Outcomes

As illustrated in figure 1 , negative job outcome is a potential outcome of workplace injustices. Workplace racial discrimination and bullying have been linked to both self-reported and medically-certified sickness absence, although the strongest associations were between bullying and medically-certified sickness absence [ Kivimäki, et al. 2000 , Alleyne 2004 ]. A cross sectional study found that sexual harassment explained the greater risk for sickness absence among female metal workers in male-dominated worksites compared to those in female dominated worksites [ Hensing and Alexanderson 2004 ]. An important feature of bullying and discrimination includes restriction of information or services related to advancement [ Alexis and Vydelingum 2004 ]. With exposure to workplace injustice, targets may become socially isolated and/or ostracized [ Zapf, et al. 1996 , Lutgen-Sandvik, et al. 2007 ], and, might engage in higher levels of counterproductive work behaviors (e.g., tardiness) and reduced productivity, and/or withdraw from seeking promotions, thus lessening their credibility and value at work [ Spratlen-Price 1995 , Day and Schoenrade 1997 , Caver and Livers 2002 , Fox and Stallworth 2005 , Allan, et al. 2009 ].

Career advancement has also been shown to be hindered by workplace injustices leading directly to premature exit from the workforce, particularly among socially disadvantaged workers, or indirectly via sickness absence and other health consequences [ Alexis and Vydelingum 2004 , Giga, et al. 2008 ]. This premature exit may also result from behavioral hints encouraging them to quit their job, which disadvantaged workers may already be more likely to encounter in the workplace [ Giga, et al. 2008 ].

Income has been linked to both physical and mental health [ Pappas, et al. 1993 , Marmot 2002 ]. Thus, workplace injustice could influence health disparities by reducing wages available to socially and economically disadvantaged groups. White men in the U.S. still earn considerably more than equally qualified women and men of other races/ethnicities [ IWPR 2010 ]. Although the Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits employers from paying men and women who perform equal tasks at different pay rates, a gender wage gap persists [ IWPR 2010 , US Dept of Commerce 2011 ]. In some organizations, men are still promoted to management positions over their equal female counterparts [ Blau and DeVaro 2007 ]. Also, many women encounter a “glass ceiling,” unable to move up the corporate ladder despite their achievements [ Williams 2001 ]. A wage penalty between 9% and 18% per child has been noted among mothers [ Gangl and Ziefle 2009 ]. In contrast, men seem to benefit in career advancement from having families [ Friedman and Greenhaus 2000 ]. Studies have found that leaves of absence are associated with fewer promotions and smaller salary increases [ Poppleton, et al. 2008 ], and that women are more affected than men because of they usually have heavier caregiving burdens [ Kelly 2005 ]. The wage penalty based on sexual orientation, though, is more complicated. A review of nine studies found that gay and bisexual men earned 10% to 32% less than heterosexual men [ Badgett, et al. 2007 ]. However, the review also found no statistically significant difference in earnings by sexual orientation among male workers in California, demonstrating, in this case, that context at the state-level mattered. The results regarding wage differentials by sexual orientation among women is more equivocal with some studies finding that lesbians earned more while other studies found that they earned less than heterosexual women. [ Badgett 1995 , Black, et al. 2003 , Badgett, et al. 2007 ].

Family Well-Being

In Figure 1 , family well-being is the final component that may be linked to exposure to workplace injustice. From a family systems perspective, family members are linked, and, thus, what happens to one member can influence others through their interactions and communications [ Cox and Paley 1997 ]. As such, health outcomes of workplace injustice can extend beyond the worker via family interactions. One pathway, characterized as the “kick the dog” phenomenon by Hoobler and Brass (2010), occurs when an abused worker acts abusively towards family members. In one study, family members of workers who experienced bullying reported that the workers engaged in family undermining when they got home [ Hoobler, et al. 2010 ]. Furthermore, the stress and well-being of the victim of injustice may cross over and influence family members’ well-being [ Westman 2001 ]. For example, among Mexican-American families, Crouter and colleagues (2006) found that men's reports of workplace racism were associated with depressive symptoms for them and their wives. This effect was moderated by acculturation: the more workplace racism fathers in less acculturated families experienced, the more depressive symptoms family members reported. This association was not apparent in families with higher levels of acculturation [ Crouter, et al. 2006 ]. Thus, workplace injustice may affect family members directly, due to lack of resources from deserved pay and promotions for example, or indirectly due to the disadvantaged workers’ distress or health.

MEASUREMENT AND METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Qualitative studies have provided rich perspectives from workers to explain how workplace injustice plays out in the labor market, within their jobs, and at worksites [ Agudelo-Suarez, et al. 2009 , de Castro, et al. 2006 , Baillien, et al. 2008 , Bowleg, et al. 2008 , Farquhar, et al. 2008 , Allan, et al. 2009 , Delp, et al. 2009 , van Heugten 2010 ]. Some studies have taken a grounded theory approach to allow for the emergence of themes explicitly or implicitly indicative of workplace injustice. Some of these qualitative studies did not necessarily have a predetermined aim of documenting the occurrence of a particular injustice, but rather initially set out to examine physical and/or psychosocial working conditions of a particular racial/ethnic minority group or groups. For example, de Castro and colleagues (2006) reviewed worker complaints received at a community-based workers’ rights center. The authors discovered that many complaints about working conditions and arrangements were tinged with experiences of discrimination based on workers’ race or ethnicity.

Other studies have quantified workplace injustices using either a self-labeling or operational method through surveys [ Bond, et al. 2007 ]. With self-labeling, study participants indicate whether they have been exposed to a pre-defined type of injustice. The operational method commonly involves study participants indicating whether or not they have experienced different events in a list of acts within a specified period. The number and frequency of experienced acts is then used to classify whether one has or has not experienced a particular workplace injustice. Studies using both methods have shown that prevalence is consistently lower in the self-labeling versus operational method [ Mikkelsen and Einarsen 2001 , Krieger, et al. 2005 , Lutgen-Sandvik, et al. 2007 , Chan, 2008 , Hogh, et al. 2011 ].

An important issue for both methods relates to timing, duration, and severity of the experience, which are often not measured [ Rospenda, et al. 2005 , Badgett, et al. 2007 , Bond, et al. 2007 , Saunders, et al. 2007 , Williams, et al. 2008 , Estrada, et al. 2011 ]. Some measures have a wide window for capturing the timing of the injustice. For example, the widely used measure of sexual harassment (SEQ) has a 24-month reference period (see [ Gutek, et al. 2004 ] for a critique). One-time assessments do not capture the ebb and flow of emotions and experiences related to workplace injustice occurring over time. Sampling and the timing of study participant recruitment poses a barrier to elucidating injustice-health linkages.

Other limitations of studies linking workplace injustices and health outcomes are inconsistencies in measuring different exposures and their outcomes. Currently, no authoritative definitions of the various types of workplace injustice exist. As a result, studies have measured discrimination, harassment, bullying and abuse using different definitions; with some strictly employing legal definitions whereas others use more inclusive definitions. Also, some assessments consist of a one-item measure (e.g., whether a person has been ever discriminated/harassed/abused against at work because of race, religion, sex, age, marital status, nationality, disability, or for any other reason). A key finding in the literature on stress and health is that such failure to develop measures for and comprehensively assess stressful experiences has the end result of understating the impact of stress on health [ Thoits 2010 ].

Additionally, the majority of studies on workplace injustice have been cross-sectional. Although cross-sectional studies provide information about the distribution of disease and can suggest associations between exposures and health outcomes, they do not provide evidence of causality. Furthermore, cross-sectional designs provide little information in terms of temporality, severity of the injustice event(s), or predictability for worker health and organizational outcomes. Cross-sectional studies are valuable for describing the experience of specific worker groups at one point in time, but longitudinal study designs are needed to better understand the unfolding relationship of workplace injustice and health.

An added issue for occupational-related studies is that most samples are drawn from white-collar settings where fewer minority workers work [ Harris, et al. 2011 ]. Few studies of workplace injustice have targeted workers in service settings and even fewer have been of blue-collar workers. Further, studies often fail to consider contextual and historical contributions to workplace injustices such as the historical and current ratio of men to women in the workplace and the race, age, sexual orientation, and gender of supervisors. For example, men might become targets of bullying and sexual harassment in occupations that are historically female. This has been found among nursing assistants where one study found that male nursing assistants reported prevalence of bullying that was twice the prevalence reported by female nursing assistants [ Eriksen and Einarsen 2004 ].

More studies utilizing multiple reporters, such as manager, coworkers, and family members, are also needed. Experiencing injustice in the workplace may “ripple” beyond the parties involved through the work context and into the family and other contexts. Including a diverse sample of reporter perspectives could provide evidence of the extent to which incidents of workplace injustice occur, and, offer insight into possible interventions. Depending on the nature of the workplace injustice, obtaining multiple reports from others at work is not always feasible.

Studies examining interactions of more than one type of workplace injustice are needed. How much do workplace injustices co-occur and what are the health implications of concomitant exposures? One methodological obstacle to such studies is that distinguishing between exposures, (e.g. bullying of racial minorities versus racial discrimination) can be difficult. Being a minority appears to increase the likelihood of being a target of injustice and both bullying and sexual harassment occur in racialized forms [ Alexis and Vydelingum 2004 , Woods, et al. 2009 , Fielden, et al. 2010 ]. A study examining discrimination exposure among job applicants found that African-American male homosexual job candidates were the most likely target of discrimination while White female heterosexual candidates were the least likely to experience discrimination [ Crow, et al. 1998 ]. Several studies addressing the additive influence of minority and immigration status on health are suggestive. A Danish study of the intersection of race/ethnicity and immigration status found that Western immigrants reported the same level of bullying as Danish workers while non-Western immigrants had 85% higher risk of experiencing workplace bullying than Danish workers [ Hogh, et al. 2011 ].

One study suggested only a minimal additive effect of ethnic harassment, gender harassment, and generalized workplace harassment on mental and physical health [ Raver and Nishii 2010 ]. The investigators theorized that workers adapt, thus further harassment does not yield significantly higher negative effects. This is a premise of the adaptation level theory, which posits that people subconsciously adjust to exposure to one form of workplace injustice by using coping strategies that buffer them from further harm [ Raver and Nishii 2010 ]. However, other studies use comparisons of exposure to injustice to exposure to trauma to conclude that exposure to multiple injustices is associated with much greater distress (thus potentially more health harming) than exposure to one injustice [ Yoder and Aniakudo 1995 , Bowleg, et al. 2003 , Krupnick, et al. 2004 , Buchanan and Fitzgerald 2008 ]. These discrepant findings could be due to the timing, severity, and/or type of injustices experienced. The magnitude of additive or multiplicative effect of exposure to multiple workplace injustice is a question that can be answered empirically through more studies, particularly if designed longitudinally and informed by a lifecourse perspective. Studies could also incorporate recruitment strategies that allow the recruitment of study participants who have been exposed to the multiple exposures under study.

These study design issues may, in part, reflect the difficulties researchers face in gathering data on workplace injustice. As noted by Badgett and colleagues (2007) , employers do not easily cooperate with research on workplace injustice compared to other types of workplace studies (e.g. worksite health promotion), and findings from such studies could have legal and financial implications and/or cause damage to employer's image.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The extant literature describes the phenomena of discrimination, harassment, abuse and bullying in the workplace and the potential outcomes of these exposures. Although there are exceptions, these unjust experiences are most often described as affecting workers in non-dominant and/or disadvantaged worker groups. Our review pointed out that these same worker groups often hold more hazardous jobs and have been shown to experience poorer general health. We explored how various forms of workplace injustice have been shown to operate and contribute to disparate health among these workers. Additionally, we suggested a conceptual model informed by current evidence to illustrate pathways between workplace injustice experiences and health disparities. The model is offered as a starting point for researchers to build upon in exploring the potential mechanisms between these exposures and health disparities and under what conditions these disparities occur. The intent of this conceptual model is to contribute to the “unpacking” of the complex contributions of workplace injustices to health disparities.

Prospective studies and refinement of methods for characterizing and quantifying workplace injustices are needed to establish causative roles and to disentangle the contributions of various exposures. Future studies should employ representative samples and oversample disadvantaged worker groups. The literature on workplace ageism and its health effects are lacking; as the workforce ages and workers delay retirement, this is a timely area for study.

Though the body of literature directly linking workplace injustice and health is small, we believe that our conceptual model is a working model that incorporates the evidence to date. While more research should be done to characterize the relationship between workplace injustice and health, the current evidence supports the pathways in this model and points to a potentially important role for workplace injustice in the health status of working people and likely their families.

Evidence for the influence of workplace injustices on health outcomes

Conflict of Interest: The authors have no conflict of interest.

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Workplace Harassment

• First Online: 05 May 2023

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• Riann Singh 3 &
• Shalini Ramdeo 4  

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In this chapter, another pressing challenge facing employees globally is explored, that is, workplace harassment and its multiple research facets. Workplace harassment refers to interpersonal behavior intending to harm another employee in the workplace. It can take the form of verbal abuse, violence/physical aggression, workplace bullying, or sexual harassment, and has unequivocally detrimental effects on physical health, mental health, and work performance. Workplace harassment affects all groups of employees to varying degrees (for instance, men, women, LBGTQ + ). The developments in research in such areas are assessed. The outcomes of harassment and its impact on withdrawal from work, work attitudes, intentions, behaviors, and work quality are investigated, and the antecedents are also evaluated in research. Further, promoting equity and belongingness in the workplace is assessed and the implications of the #MeToo movement on workplace harassment. The literature is explored in these areas and research gaps are also identified.

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Singh, R., Ramdeo, S. (2023). Workplace Harassment. In: Contemporary Perspectives in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30225-1_6

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Research on Workplace Harassment

Research on the causes and impact of harassment in the workplace.

An Overview on Workplace Harassment

Project WHEN (Workplace Harassment Ends Now) is working hard to stand behind our mission of elevating awareness of workplace harassment and encouraging organizations and individuals to start driving change. The undeniable truth is that harassment and bullying can occur in any place of employment. 

Therefore, a huge piece of our organization’s work is researching all areas of workplace harassment and the different factors that are impacting work cultures. Our goal for this research is to get to the root of the issue and identify implementable solutions.

This page highlights our valuable findings that organizations in different industries can leverage to instill respectful behaviors in the workplace. We are pleased to share the key aspects of our exploration, as well as bring people closer to other research and resources that offer important information on preventing and addressing workplace harassment.

Project WHEN’s Research on Harassment in the Workplace

➤ the definition of harassment.

Project WHEN defines workplace harassment as “unwanted conduct to include all areas of workplace harassment, including sexual and physical harassment, quid pro quo harassment, microaggression, bullying, ageism, job shaming, verbal threats, derogatory comments, discriminating or exclusionary behavior, and other forms of offensive behaviors.”

➤ Examples & Types of Harassment at Work

• Sexual and physical harassment. Can range from leering at a part of your body, jokes or other verbal remarks of a sexual nature, to unwanted touching or rape.
• Quid pro quo harassment. Sexual coercion; “Your career in the company would be on the fast track if you weren’t so uptight. You need to join me at the annual sales convention in Las Vegas.
• Microaggression. “You did a really nice job in your team’s presentation…for a woman.”
• Bullying. “This report is full of errors. I could have asked my kid to do this report and had less hassle in fixing your stupid mistakes.”
• Ageism. “OK Grandpa, get the lead out. I’d like to get this project wrapped up before I’m a senior citizen.”
• Job shaming. “He’s only the janitor. His opinion doesn’t count.”
• Verbal threats. “I swear I’ll put my fist through this wall if I need to explain this to you one more time.”
• Derogatory remarks. Comments exhibiting a lack of respect toward someone, degrading remarks, or expressions of criticism, hostility, or disregard.
• Discriminating or exclusionary behavior. “I want Bill, Mike, Joe, and Brian to work on this assignment.” Somehow, Ahmed, Vishnu, Mohammed, and Alejandro have yet to be selected to participate on a special projects team.

➤ Intent Versus Perception

Project WHEN defines harassment as unwanted behavior of a nature that violates your dignity, makes you feel intimidated, degraded or humiliated, and creates a hostile or offensive work environment. It’s about how you perceive the behavior and/or how you feel, rather than the intention of the harasser. The harasser may not intentionally be trying to offend you. Or he/she may tell you they were only kidding. It doesn’t matter what he/she set out to do, whether maliciously or innocently. It’s harassment if YOU perceive that it is.

➤ Outside the Walls of the Workplace

• Workforce opinions about how to treat other people are not manufactured completely within an organization. Employees walking into a workplace do not leave their personal experiences on the doorstep (even if they tried). 
• Employees’ personal attitudes can contribute to an already toxic work environment. 
• Similarly, the attitudes we experience within the workplace can, in fact, taint how we interface with others in our personal lives.

➤ The WHEN Perspective on Workplace Harassment

Project WHEN (Workplace Harassment Ends Now) recommends taking a holistic approach to eliminating workplace harassment. With a goal of addressing systemic harassment for all employees, an all-encompassing methodology must be adopted.

• Activities associated with eliminating workplace harassment should not be focused exclusively on women.
• Diversity, equality, and inclusion initiatives
• Attracting, retaining and inspiring top talent
• Enhancing the employee experience and engagement

➤ The Impact of the Critical Influences in Creating Organizational Culture of Respect

Diane Stegmeier, founder of Project WHEN is also the CEO of Stegmeier Consulting Group, a change consulting firm. As a global thought leader in change management and workplace research, she recognized that one of the most important change initiatives that organizations should be focusing on is creating respectful, harassment-free workplaces for future generations. 

Deriving from her extensive research on resistance to workplace change and important findings on the 15 Critical Influences™ compiled in her book, Innovations in Office Design: The Critical Influence Approach to Effective Work Environments , Project WHEN offers the concept of Organizational Culture of Respect which focuses on a number of factors that influence behavior in the workplace. 

These factors are also known as Critical Influences™ and they can contribute to the creation of a culture of respect in the organization’s work environment. If left unchecked, the influence of these factors can negatively impact the corporate culture, and can establish a toxic workplace where harassment can flourish. 

Ten Influences on Behavior in the Workplace

• Leadership Behavior
• Image & Reputation
• Rewards & Consequences
• Organizational Structure
• Compensation
• Communication
• Core Values
• Accountability
• Physical & Virtual Workplace

Impact of Influences on a Culture of Respect

➤ Ongoing research into the root causes and aftermath of harassment in the workplace

Project WHEN is always looking for sponsors to help support new research studies. Service providers in the area of employment law and respectful workplaces may consider partnering with Project WHEN to sponsor the development of surveys, white papers, and research studies.  As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, these types of activities allow us to continue to raise awareness for these important issues.  We will also be adding to our research findings as benchmarking data returns from organizations that have enrolled in WHEN’s organizational certification program .

Specific Industries Affected by Harassment

Harassment in the tech industry.

Despite claims of progress, the tech industry continues to draw attention for frequently making news for workplace harassment, ranging from sexual harassment, gender inequality,  racism and ageism. This page covers how tech industry leaders and employees can take a proactive approach in solving systemic harassment, and a list of workplace harassment cases in the tech industry.

Harassment in the Alcohol & Service Industry

Due to the risk factors of allowing alcohol consumption and relying on compensation (often tips) tied to client satisfaction, harassment is quite prevalent in workplaces within the alcohol and service industry. But it doesn’t mean that employers and employees are powerless against it. This page lists the things that we can do to address it, along with examples of harassment documented within the industry.

Harassment in Higher Education

Recent trends suggest that harassment is ingrained in higher education cultures. What can school administrators, faculty members, staff members, and students do to prevent and act against it? Learn that here. This page also includes real examples of harassment in higher education institutions.

Harassment in the Government Sector

Harassment is pervasive in many industries and the government sector is no exception. But what could be influencing the existence of this systemic problem in government workplaces? This post answers this question, and a list of harassment examples that have been reported within this sector.

Harassment in the Media and Entertainment Industry

The media and entertainment industry has been confronted with many stories of workplace harassment. It has become a systemic problem that requires a holistic approach. This page explores how people in the industry can prevent and combat it and provides a collection of real harassment examples within the media and entertainment industry.

Harassment in Sports

A culture of harassment undeniably exists in the world of sports and it has created a systemic issue that is difficult to eradicate. This page covers what leaders, sports officials, athletes, and bystanders can do to address this colossal problem. It also contains examples of harassment in the sporting world.

EEOC Research

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is also working hard to educate organizations and individuals about the importance of preventing workplace harassment. As part of their important work, the federal agency has developed a chart of risk factors for harassment at work and provided corresponding strategies that organizations can use to address such risks.

Chart of Risk Factors for Harassment and Responsive Strategies

Source: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity: Chart of Risk Factors for Harassment and Responsive Strategies

What can organizations and individuals do to combat workplace harassment?

Organizations can get involved by making a tax-deductible donation to help further our cause or becoming a corporate sponsor through the sponsorship opportunities that we offer. For entities who want to initiate a meaningful conversation on workplace harassment, you can host a Project WHEN Roundtable for your executive team, HR, Diversity & Inclusion, and compliance leaders, or for your local business community. 

To start taking a holistic approach in creating a harassment-free workplace, it is important to assess your work culture. Administering an anti-harassment survey can help you touch base with your employees and find potential challenges in the workplace. Project WHEN can guide your organization in deploying the Culture Pulse Survey and provide actionable data that you can use to address areas of improvement.

Pursuing  WHEN™ Organizational Certification will not only allow your company to gain access to best practices in preventing harassment but will also serve as an indication of your commitment to create a harassment-free workplace to your existing and potential employees, customers, and the community.

As an individual, you can donate, as well, and ask your employer to conduct a Project WHEN Roundtable/Seminar. You can also widen your knowledge and influence in driving change by becoming an anti-harassment certified practitioner. We will soon launch a WHEN™ Professional Certification for leaders in Human Resources, Inclusion & Diversity, Legal, and Compliance roles, or any individual who wants to pursue it.

Other Research/Resources

Many researchers have been dedicating their efforts in widening studies about the different aspects of workplace harassment. Below are some pertinent papers and resources exploring sexual harassment and other types of workplace discrimination.

• Antecedents and Consequences of Sexual Harassment in Organizations: A Test of an Integrated Model

An article reporting the empirical test of the researchers’ proposed conceptual model identifying antecedents (organizational climate and job gender context) and consequences (effects on work-related variables, psychological state, and physical health) of sexual harassment. The model was tested by collecting and analyzing data from a sample of women in non-traditional job roles.

• The Economic and Career Effects of Sexual Harassment on Working Women

Harassment has a huge impact on working women. In this study, researchers use mixed methods of gathering data to examine how sexual harassment affects women’s career trajectory.

• It Is Part of the Job: Waitresses and Nurses Define Sexual Harassment

A study describing the effect of workplace culture on how sexual harassment is defined in jobs that are traditionally categorized as women’s work. Results of in-depth interviews conducted with waitresses and female nurses revealed how perceptions on sexual behaviors vary due to various work norms and factors.

• Managing sexual harassment more strategically: An analysis of environmental causes

This paper studies the environmental causes of sexual harassment. After gathering data from 538 nurses working in Australian hospitals and testing a model showing the correlation of organizational variables to sexual harassment, results revealed that an unbalanced job gender ratio, nurses’ negative perception of management’s leadership style, and no prior socialization all contribute to the occurrence of sexual harassment at work.

• Perceived Sexual Harassment at Work: Meta-Analysis and Structural Model of Antecedents and Consequences

This research tests a structural equation model and examines the antecedents and consequences of sexual harassment at the personal and organizational level. Results revealed that organizational environmental factors are main predictors of harassment.

• Policing Gender at Work: Intersections of Harassment Based on Sex and Sexuality

This paper tests the theory that oppressions based on gender and sexual orientation are linked. By creating a workplace harassment model, gathering data from 629 employees in higher education, and finally analyzing the collected information, researchers explored the relationship between sexual and heterosexist harassment.

• Retaining Employees Through Anti-Sexual Harassment Practices: Exploring the Mediating Role of Psychological Distress and Employee Engagement

Using three theories – sexual harassment, organizational climate, and employee engagement theories, this study introduces a model of how perceived anti-sexual harassment practices and incidents relate to affective commitment and intentions of employees to stay.

• Sexual Assault and Other Types of Sexual Harassment by Workplace Personnel: A Comparison of Antecedents and Consequences

Comparing the theoretical antecedents and consequences of sexual assault by workplace personnel and other types of sexual harassment among women employed in the U.S. Military, this article explores the characteristics of these types of victimization.

• Sexual Harassment in Organizations: A Decade of Research in Review

A detailed review of scholarship about sexual harassment. Focusing primarily on men’s harassment of women, this study answers questions about the definition of harassment, why it happens, who the harassers are, its effects, and what individuals can do to address it.

• Sexual Harassment in the Federal Workplace: Bridging the Gap Between Genders

A study investigating the adverse effects and prevalence of sexual harassment in a federally operated workplace. An analysis of data collected from both males and females shows that women experience sexual harassment more than men. Employees also report that gender harassment had the greatest adverse effects and was correlated with sexual harassment.

• Sexual Harassment Severity: Assessing Situational and Personal Determinants and Outcomes

The severity of sexual harassment is often associated with the type of harassment that occurred. This study introduces a comprehensive model that includes both person and situation-level variables and explains why these are important in assessing how severe a sexual harassment incident is.

• Sexual Harassment, Workplace Authority, and the Paradox of Power

An article exploring the role of workplace power and gender expressions as a predictor of sexual harassment. Using data from the Youth Development Study (YDS), authors reveal how the battle for power, rather than sexual desire itself, can be the cause of sexual harassment.

• Asia Floor Wage Alliance’s Step-by-Step Approach to Prevent Gender Based Violence at Production Lines in Garment Supplier Factories in Asia

This comprehensive guide presents a step-by-step strategy for preventing gender based violence in garment production lines in Asia which can serve as a great reference for organizations.

• The Moderating Effect of Equal Opportunity Support and Confidence in Grievance Procedures on Sexual Harassment from Different Perpetrators

Drawing on three theoretical perspectives namely the attribution theory, power, and the role identity theory, this study focuses on the differences between the effects of sexual harassment from organizational insiders and organizational outsiders. Results revealed that equal opportunity support and confidence in grievance procedures have a moderating effect on addressing sexual harassment.

• There’s a Policy for That: A Comparison of the Organizational Culture of Workplaces Reporting Incidents of Sexual Harassment

This research studies the differences between organizational cultures of companies with sexual harassment policies in place but still receive formal complaints over those that do not.

• When Men Are Sexually Harassed: A Foundation for Studying Men’s Experiences as Targets of Sexual Harassment

Acknowledging the limited research on men’s sexual harassment experiences, authors conduct a review of the literature on men’s experiences as targets of sexual harassment. This review touches on the need for organizational communication scholars to conduct more research on men’s experiences of sexual harassment.

• When the Customer Shouldn’t Be King: Antecedents and Consequences of Sexual Harassment by Clients and Customers

Sexual harassment within organizations is mainly the focus of most research studies. To address the lack of research on harassment experiences at the boundaries of the workplace, this paper introduces a theoretical model of the antecedents and consequences of sexual harassment by clients and customers. 

Support Project WHEN

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we rely on support through grants and contributions from corporations and individuals. If you’re passionate about eliminating workplace harassment, please consider making a donation to further our mission.

Workplace Harassment Ends Now

Project WHEN's Mission:

Elevate awareness of workplace harassment to create a sense of urgency and a call to action for organizations to commit to proactively preventing harassment and fostering a culture of respect in the work environment.

What’s New

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Project WHEN is a 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on ending harassment in workplaces everywhere. Website Design by Arbor Technology

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JSmol Viewer

A systematic literature review of sexual harassment studies with text mining.

1. Introduction

• What are the main research topics in studies related to sexual harassment?
• What is the temporal trend of each topic?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. data collection and cleanings, 2.2. topic modeling.

2.3. Topic Analysis

2.4. temporal trend analysis.

• 1970s: Hospital Workspace Violence, Hegemonic Masculinity, and Gender Equality in Workspace.
• 1980s: Workspace Policies, Perceptions of Sexual Harassment, and Gender Equality in Workspace
• 1990s: Perceptions of Sexual Harassment, Workplace Legal Cases, Workspace Policies
• 2000s: Perceptions of Sexual Harassment, Hegemonic Masculinity, Youth Bullying and Victimization
• 2010s: Youth Bullying and Victimization, Hegemonic Masculinity, Workspace Policies
• 2020: Hegemonic masculinity, feminism, media, and politics, workspace policies.

4. Discussion

Supplementary materials, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Karami, A.; Spinel, M.Y.; White, C.N.; Ford, K.; Swan, S. A Systematic Literature Review of Sexual Harassment Studies with Text Mining. Sustainability 2021 , 13 , 6589. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126589

Karami A, Spinel MY, White CN, Ford K, Swan S. A Systematic Literature Review of Sexual Harassment Studies with Text Mining. Sustainability . 2021; 13(12):6589. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126589

Karami, Amir, Melek Yildiz Spinel, C. Nicole White, Kayla Ford, and Suzanne Swan. 2021. "A Systematic Literature Review of Sexual Harassment Studies with Text Mining" Sustainability 13, no. 12: 6589. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126589

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Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018)

Chapter: 2 sexual harassment research, 2 sexual harassment research.

This chapter reviews the information gathered through decades of sexual harassment research. It provides definitions of key terms that will be used throughout the report, establishing a common framework from the research literature and the law for discussing these issues. In reviewing what sexual harassment research has learned over time, the chapter also examines the research methods for studying sexual harassment and the appropriate methods for conducting this research in a reliable way. The chapter provides information on the prevalence of sexual harassment and common characteristics of how sexual harassment is perpetrated and experienced across lines of industry, occupation, and social class. It concludes with common characteristics of environments where sexual harassment is more likely to occur.

DEFINITIONS OF KEY TERMS

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines define sexual harassment as the following ( USEEOC n.d.a. ):

Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.

Sexual harassment was first recognized in cases in which women lost their jobs because they rejected sexual overtures from their employers (e.g., Barnes v.

Costle 1977 1 ). This type of sexual harassment became defined as quid pro quo sexual harassment (Latin for “this for that,” meaning that a job or educational opportunity is conditioned on some kind of sexual performance). Such coercive behavior was judged to constitute a violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Soon it was recognized in employment law that pervasive sexist behavior from coworkers can create odious conditions of employment—what became known as a hostile work environment —and also constitute illegal discrimination ( Farley 1978 ; MacKinnon 1979 ; Williams v. Saxbe 1976 2 ). These two basic forms of sexual harassment, quid pro quo and hostile environment harassment, were summarized in guidelines issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1980 ( USEEOC 1980 ).

Hostile work or educational environments can be created by behaviors such as addressing women in crude or objectifying terms, posting pornographic images in the office, and by making demeaning or derogatory statements about women, such as telling anti-female jokes. Hostile environment harassment also encompasses unwanted sexual overtures such as exposing one’s genitals, stroking and kissing someone, and pressuring a person for dates even if no quid pro quo is involved ( Bundy v. Jackson 1981; 3 Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson 1986 4 ).

An important distinction between quid pro quo and hostile environment harassment is that the former usually involves a one-on-one relationship in which the perpetrator has control of employment- or educational-related rewards or punishments over the target. In contrast, the latter can involve many perpetrators and many targets. In the hostile environment form of sexual harassment, coworkers often exhibit a pattern of hostile sexist behavior toward multiple targets over an extended period of time ( Holland and Cortina 2016 ). For hostile sex-related or gender-related behavior to be considered illegal sexual harassment, it must be pervasive or severe enough to be judged as having had a negative impact upon the work or educational environment. Therefore, isolated or single instances of such behavior typically qualify only when they are judged to be sufficiently severe. Legal scholars and judges continue to use the two subtype definitions of quid pro quo and hostile environment to define sexual harassment.

Illegal sexual harassment falls under the umbrella of a more comprehensive category, discriminatory behavior . Illegal discrimination can occur on the basis of any legally protected category: race, ethnicity, religious creed, age, sex, gender identity, marital status, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, genetic information, physical or mental disabilities, veteran status, prior conviction of a crime, gender identity or expression, or membership in other protected classes set forth in state or federal law. Regarding sexual harassment, the focus of this report, this includes gender harassment , a term designed to emphasize that harmful or

___________________

1 Barnes v. Costle , 561 F.2d 983, 987 (D.C. Cir. 1977).

2 Williams v. Saxbe , 413 F. Supp. 654 D.D.C. (1976).

3 Bundy v. Jackson , 641 F.2d 934 (D.C. Cir. 1981).

4 Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson , 477 U.S. 57 (1986).

illegal sexual harassment does not have to be about sexual activity ( USEEOC n.d.b. ). Sexual harassment constitutes discrimination because it is harmful and it is based on gender—it is not necessarily motivated by sexual desire nor does it need to involve sexual activity.

Both legal doctrine and social science research recognize gender as encompassing both one’s biological sex and gender-based stereotypes and expectations, such as heterosexuality and proper performance of gender roles. Sexual harassment in the form of gender harassment can be based on the violation of cultural gender stereotypes. For example, a man may experience gender harassment for being a “sissy” or being easily embarrassed by pornography (violating stereotypes that men should be strong, heterosexual, and sexually bold). While a woman may be gender harassed for taking a job traditionally held by a man or in a traditionally male field. Gender harassment in such a situation might consist of actions to sabotage the woman’s tools, machinery, or equipment, or telling the woman she is not smart enough for scientific work. Subsequent sections of this report discuss gender harassment in greater detail.

Psychologists who study gender-related behavior have developed more nuanced terms to describe sexual harassment in order to more precisely measure and account for the behaviors that constitute sexual harassment and to describe how targets experience those behaviors. A three-part classification system divides sexual harassment into distinct but related categories: sexual coercion , unwanted sexual attention , and gender harassment (see Figure 2-1 ; Fitzgerald et al. 1988 ; 5 Fitzgerald, Gelfand, and Drasgow 1995 ; Gelfand, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow 1995 ).

Sexual coercion entails sexual advances, and makes the conditions of employment (or education, for students) contingent upon sexual cooperation.

Unwanted sexual attention also entails sexual advances, but it does not add professional rewards or threats to force compliance. In this category are expressions of romantic or sexual interest that are unwelcome, unreciprocated, and offensive to the target; examples include unwanted touching, hugging, stroking, and persistent requests for dates or sexual behavior despite discouragement, and can include assault ( Cortina, Koss, and Cook 2018 ; Fitzgerald, Gelfand, and Drasgow 1995 ; Fitzgerald, Swan, and Magley 1997 ).

Gender harassment is by far the most common type of sexual harassment. It refers to ‘‘a broad range of verbal and nonverbal behaviors not aimed at sexual cooperation but that convey insulting, hostile, and degrading attitudes about” members of one gender ( Fitzgerald, Gelfand, and Drasgow 1995 , 430). Gender harassment is further defined as two types: sexist hostility and crude harassment . Examples of the sexist hostility form of gender harassment for women include

5 The empirical record on sexual harassment goes back over 30 years, and important studies were conducted in that first decade. Members of this committee thought carefully about whether to cite “older” articles (e.g., from the 1980s). We opted to retain those references when, in our expert opinion, their methods were rigorous and their conclusions would still apply in today’s world.

demeaning jokes or comments about women, comments that women do not belong in leadership positions or are not smart enough to succeed in a scientific career, and sabotaging women. The crude harassment form of gender harassment is defined as the use of sexually crude terms that denigrate people based on their gender (e.g., using insults such as “slut” to refer to a female coworker or “pussy” to refer to a male coworker; Fitzgerald, Gelfand, and Drasgow 1995 ).

Both women and men can and do experience all three forms of sexual harassment, but some subgroups face higher rates than others. For example,

women who are lesbian or bisexual ( Cortina et al. 1998 ; Konik and Cortina 2008 ), women who endorse gender-egalitarian beliefs ( Dall’Ara and Maass 1999 ; Siebler, Sabelus, and Bohner 2008 ), and women who are stereotypically masculine in behavior, appearance, or personality ( Berdahl 2007b ; Leskinen, Rabelo, and Cortina 2015 ) experience sexual harassment at higher rates than other women. Likewise, men who are gay, transgender, petite, or in some way perceived as “not man enough” encounter more harassment than other men ( Berdahl 2007b ; Fitzgerald and Cortina 2017 ; Rabelo and Cortina 2014 ).

Interestingly, the motivation underlying sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention behaviors appears different from the motivation underlying gender harassment. Whereas the first two categories suggest sexual advances (the goal being sexual exploitation of women), the third category is expressing hostility toward women (the goals being insult, humiliation, or ostracism) ( Holland and Cortina 2016 ). In other words, sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention can be viewed as “come-ons,” while gender harassment is, for all intents and purposes, a “put-down” ( Fitzgerald, Gelfand, and Drasgow 1995 ; Leskinen, Cortina, and Kabat 2011 ). However, it is important to note that these come-on behaviors are not necessarily about attraction to women; more often than not, they are instead motivated by the desire to devalue women or punish those who violate gender norms ( Berdahl 2007b ; Cortina and Berdahl 2008 ).

Some researchers further define the verbal insults associated with gender harassment, along with accompanying nonverbal affronts, as microaggressions. This term refers to “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative” messages ( Sue et al. 2007 , 271) to or about historically stigmatized groups. This term can also be broken down into three categories: microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations ( Sue et al. 2007 ). There is some concern that microaggression remains a poorly defined construct, with porous boundaries. Additionally, the use of the term micro is misleading, as it implies all these experiences are minor or imperceptible acts. Yet some microaggressions, such as referring to people by using offensive names, are obviously offensive and can be deeply damaging. Similarly the root word aggression is also misleading, as most experts reserve this term for behavior that carries intent to harm ( Lilienfeld 2017 ). For these reasons, our committee chose to focus on incivility , a term in greater use in the workplace aggression literature.

Incivility refers to “low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others” ( Andersson and Pearson 1999 , 457). Lim and Cortina’s 2005 study on two female populations in public-sector organizations (Ns = 833 and 1,425) revealed that sexual harassment often takes place against a backdrop of incivility, or in other words, in an environment of generalized disrespect. The authors argue

that, based on their findings, the same perpetrator “may instigate multiple forms of mistreatment—both sexualized and generalized—in efforts to debase women and reinforce or raise their own social advantage” (492). Lim and Cortina point out that if sexual harassment is tolerated in an organization or not seen as a deviant behavior, incidents of general incivility would be expected to be even less likely to receive attention from management. Based on these findings, it could be argued that generalized incivility should be a red flag for leadership or management in work and education environments, because when gender harassment occurs, it is virtually always in environments with high rates of uncivil conduct ( Cortina et al. 2002 ; Lim and Cortina 2005 ).

Note that sexual harassment is often ambient , meaning it is “not clearly targeted at any individual or group of individuals” ( Parker 2008 , 947) in the work or education environment or behavior that goes beyond the direct target of the harassment ( Glomb et al. 1997 ). Ambient sexual harassment is determined by a general “frequency of sexually harassing behavior experienced by others” and can include all types of sexually harassing behavior (309). For example, it can include pornography being displayed in a common area or sexually abusive language being used publicly in the work or education environment ( Parker 2008 ). Ambient unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion refer to observed instances of unwanted sexual pursuit, targeted at a fellow employee. In other words, one need not be personally targeted to feel the effects of sexual harassment (much like second-hand smoke).

Despite refined definitions and terms to describe sexual harassment and gender discrimination, documenting the degree of these behaviors in work and education environments remains challenging. This is in part because individuals experiencing these behaviors rarely label them as such. Numerous studies have demonstrated that more than half of working women report experiencing sexually harassing behavior at work, but less than 20 percent of those women actually describe the experience as “sexual harassment” ( Ellis, Barak, and Pinto 1991 ; Ilies et al. 2003 ; Magley, Hulin, et al. 1999 ; Magley and Shupe 2005 ).

Considering these sources, the report uses the following definition of sexual harassment:

Sexual harassment (a form of discrimination) is composed of three categories of behavior: (1) gender harassment (verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey hostility, objectification, exclusion, or second-class status about members of one gender), (2) unwanted sexual attention (verbal or physical unwelcome sexual advances, which can include assault), and (3) sexual coercion (when favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity). Harassing behavior can be either direct (targeted at an individual) or ambient (a general level of sexual harassment in an environment).

Box 2-1 provides a quick review of the key terms introduced in this chapter.

RESEARCH METHODS USED TO EXAMINE SEXUAL HARASSMENT

The goal of providing recommendations for preventing sexual harassment and mitigating its effects in academic science, engineering, and medicine requires evidence-based research. Different studies have different strengths and weaknesses, and these should be kept in mind when reviewing their findings, particularly if leaders in academic institutions, legislators, and researchers hope to design meaningful and effective interventions and policies. The two most commonly used study methods are surveys and laboratory experiments. Important findings have also emerged using in-depth interviews, case studies, sociolegal analyses, and other methods. When conducting or reviewing research examining sexual harassment, it is crucial that the methods used to conduct the research match the goals for the research. It is crucial to note that the prevalence of sexual harassment in a population is best estimated using representative surveys and not by relying on the invariably lower number of official reports of sexual harassment made to an organization (see the discussion in Chapter 4 about how rare it is for women to formally report their experience). The next sections discuss these various research methods and the kind of information they provide.

Survey Methods

Surveys, containing well-validated instruments, can be useful in estimating the prevalence (how common sexual harassment experiences or behaviors are among people in a given population) and determining correlates, antecedents, outcomes, and factors that attenuate or amplify outcomes from sexual harassment. For instance, they can assess links between harassment and different aspects of targets’ well-being, targets’ understanding of the resources available to them, and the strategies they use to cope. Basing a survey on a defined population accessible from a comprehensive list, or sample frame, can be helpful. Sometimes, too, using multiple instruments and data sources can be a highly effective approach. Though surveys have often focused on the targets of sexually harassing behavior (e.g., Fitzgerald, Drasgow, and Magley 1999 ), some work has also been done examining self-descriptions by perpetrators (e.g., Dekker and Barling 1998 ) and bystanders (e.g., Hitlan, Schneider, and Walsh 2006 ; Richman-Hirsch and Glomb 2002 ; Miner-Rubino and Cortina 2004 , 2007 ).

Conducting surveys on sexual harassment is challenging, but fortunately researchers have addressed many of these challenges. Those wishing to conduct a survey on sexual harassment ought to follow the scientific methods described below and the ethical and safety guidelines for this type of research ( WHO 2001 ). Poorly conducting surveys on sexual harassment is unethical because responding to the survey could needlessly retraumatize the respondent. Additionally, the resulting inaccurate data from such a survey could be used to question the importance and legitimacy of such an important and sensitive topic ( WHO 2001 ).

An initial challenge in conducting survey research on sexual harassment is

that many women are not likely to label their experiences as sexual harassment. Additionally, women who experience the gender harassment type of sexual harassment are more than 7 times less likely to label their experiences as “sexual harassment” than women who experience unwanted sexual attention or sexual coercion ( Holland and Cortina 2013 ). This illustrates what other research has shown: that in both the law and the lay public, the dominant understandings of sexual harassment overemphasize two forms of sexual harassment, sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention, while downplaying the third (most common) type—gender harassment (see Figure 2-2 ; Leskinen, Cortina, and Kabat 2011 ; Schultz 1998 ). Regardless of whether women self-label their experiences as sexual harassment or not, they all have similar negative psychological and professional outcomes ( Magley, Hulin, et al. 1999 ; Woodzicka and LaFrance 2005 ).

This labeling issue was first identified in research on rape and sexual violence. Surveys conducted by Koss (1992) revealed that when respondents were asked simply, “Have you been raped?” estimates of the number of people raped in the college population were very low, yet when asked whether they had experienced a series of specific behaviors that would meet legal criteria for rape, estimates of the number of people raped were much higher. Subsequent studies of sexual harassment found similar results ( Ilies et al. 2003 ; Schneider, Pryor, and Fitzgerald 2011 ), and Fitzgerald and colleagues (1988) established the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) to standardize questions about specific sexual harassment behaviors rather than asking about “sexual harassment” generally. With extensive psychometric evidence supporting it, the SEQ has become the gold standard in the assessment of sexual harassment experiences in both work and school settings ( Cortina and Berdahl 2008 ). Unfortunately, some recent studies attempting to measure the prevalence of sexual harassment have not followed this good practice and are thus likely to have low prevalence rates, be missing data about those who have experienced gender harassment, and as a result be unreliable for evaluating the prevalence of sexual harassment.

Another hurdle faced by surveys on sexual harassment is that women who have experienced sexual harassment may be reluctant to respond to a survey on the topic or to admit being a target or victim because sexual harassment can be stigmatizing, humiliating, and traumatizing ( Greco, O’Boyle, and Walter 2015 ; Bumiller 1987 , 1992 ). To encourage open self-reports, it is important that survey responses are confidential, if not anonymous, and to reassure survey participants that this is the case. Additionally, to help avoid a nonresponse bias (i.e., some segments of a population selectively declining to participate), sexual harassment experts do not use the term sexual harassment or sexual misconduct in the survey title and instead situate their questions about sexual harassment within a broader survey that asks about social concerns such as gender issues, civility, or culture. In a meta-analytic review of the incidence of sexual harassment in the United States, Ilies and colleagues (2003) found that directly asking respondents whether they had experienced sexual harassment (as opposed to using questionnaires that

list behaviors that constitute sexual harassment) led to substantially lower estimates of sexual harassment incidence.

When determining prevalence estimates, attention must be given to minimizing nonresponse biases in the survey sample. Nonresponse biases include attitudes and other characteristics that disincline people from survey participation ( Krosnick et al. 2015 ). A reluctance to answer questions about sexually harassing experiences could represent a nonresponse bias. While low response rates are not synonymous with low levels of nonresponse bias, generally low response rates should be interpreted with caution and will raise limitations on what conclusions can be drawn because of the representativeness of the survey sample ( Dillman, Smyth, and Christian 2008 ; Ilies et al. 2003 ). Just as it is important to be cautious about deriving prevalence estimates from samples with lower response rates, researchers and leaders in academic institutions must also be judicious when deriving such estimates from nonprobability samples (see Yeager, Krosnick, and Javitz [2009] for a discussion of the problems with opt-in internet surveys). 6

A challenge for any survey that is particularly important for sexual harassment surveys is their ability to gather information about nonmajority members of a given workplace or campus. Often women of color and sexual- and gender-minority women have been underrepresented among survey respondents, resulting in unreliable prevalence rates for these specific populations. Recent research is beginning to address this by looking at sexual harassment through the lens of intersectionality and by working to oversample these underrepresented populations when conducting surveys.

Convenience sampling (in which participants are recruited from social media or specialized groups with a specific target group in mind) and snowball sampling (recruiting additional subjects by asking participants who else they know in their networks who would also know about the topic) are useful means of recruiting hard-to-reach or underrepresented populations (e.g., lesbians who are not “out” at work, minority groups for whom no lists are available) ( Meyer and Wilson 2009 ). These studies can yield critical insights, even though the samples cannot be considered representative of a particular population. A good example of this approach is the recent study about the experiences of women of color in the fields of astronomy and planetary science, identified via convenience sampling. The researchers found that women of color were more likely to report hearing sexist remarks from supervisors or peers in the workplace than did white women, white men, or men of color. Women of color were also more likely to feel unsafe at work because of their gender ( Clancy et al. 2017 ). This study shows how survey data can be used to test relationships among important variables such as race,

6 Nonprobability samples are samples that are not representative of the whole population and are often used when a defined population is not possible to specify or when it is not necessary to have a representative dataset to achieve the goals of the research. These samples can include convenience samples and snowball samples.

gender, sexual harassment, and sense of safety, yielding conclusions about who is most likely to be targeted for sexually harassing behaviors, and with what effects.

When determining and comparing prevalence rates, it is important to distinguish the prevalence rates for women separate from men and not to rely on a combined prevalence for both genders. Relying on combined rates will result in a lower rate because women are much more likely to experience sexual harassment than men ( USMSPB 1995 ; Magley, Waldo, et al. 1999 ; Ilies et al. 2003 ; Kabat-Farr and Cortina 2014 ).

Another methodological feature to be particularly attentive to when estimating and comparing prevalence rates is the time period respondents are asked about. In some studies, no time limit is given, while others may limit it to the last 12 or 24 months. The longer the time period, the more likely the rates will be skewed and not assess current incidence. Longer time periods can result in higher incidence rates because more time means more women are likely to have experienced such behavior. However, after long enough periods, memory deterioration sets in, leaving behind only those sexual harassment experiences that left a lasting memory, and leaving out everyday sexist comments or ambient harassment. Additionally, longer time periods can also introduce the risk that the incident could have occurred at a past environment, not the current one under investigation.

Lastly, a key obstacle to obtaining accurate prevalence numbers across academia and between fields or workplaces is the number of surveys available that do not always use a standardized method for measuring or defining sexual harassment. Unfortunately, when institutions make their decisions about which survey or questions to use, they often do not seem to be aware of good practices in sexual harassment research or to have consulted with a sexual harassment researcher, because different methodologies and measurement approaches have been used ( Wood et al. 2017 ). As a result, the surveys not only produce unreliable prevalence numbers but also pose a risk of “comparing apples to oranges” when analyzing the data across institutions. The largest concern when comparing prevalence rates is differences in how sexual harassment is defined in the survey and during the analysis of the responses. A meta-analysis of sexual harassment surveys demonstrates that the prevalence rate is 24 percent when women are asked whether they have experienced “sexual harassment” versus 58 percent when they are asked whether they experienced harassing behaviors that meet the definition of sexual harassment (and are then classified as such in the analysis) ( Ilies et al. 2003 ). In other words, the direct query method gives an estimate of prevalence based on the respondent’s perception, while the behavioral experiences method estimates the extent to which potentially harassing incidents happen in an organization. This research also demonstrates that these differences were not due to differences in work environments or to sampling method ( Ilies et al. 2003 ).

To try to present the most accurate information on the prevalence of sexual harassment, the report references surveys that follow good practices in both

sexual harassment research and survey research and that clearly identify differences in time period and definitions.

Experimental Methods

Another way that information has been gathered about sexual harassment has been through laboratory experiments, in which researchers examine the occurrence of sexually harassing behaviors by manipulating variables under controlled conditions. The advantage of this approach is that researchers can directly observe sexually harassing behavior. This approach, however, does not provide information on the prevalence of sexual harassment.

Some of the behaviors that have been directly observed in experiments include the following:

• Unsolicited sexual touching by someone in a supervisory role ( Pryor, LaVite, and Stoller 1993 );
• Unsolicited touching from peers ( Pryor 1987 );
• Nonverbal dominance behaviors ( Murphy, Driscoll, and Kelly 1999 );
• Sending unsolicited pornographic materials electronically ( Dall’Ara and Maass 1999 ; Maass et al. 2003 );
• Sending sexist jokes electronically ( Galdi, Maass, and Cadinu 2014 );
• Sending sexual come-ons electronically ( Diehl, Rees, and Bohner 2012 );
• Asking sexist questions in an interview ( Hitlan et al. 2009 ); and
• Sexualized behavior, such as staring at a woman’s body, during an interview ( Rudman and Borgida 1995 ).

Laboratory experiments can help uncover situational factors that encourage or discourage potential perpetrators from engaging in sexually harassing behavior. For instance, experiments show that sexual harassment is less likely to occur if those behaviors are not accepted by authority figures ( Pryor, LaVite, and Stoller 1993 ). Another experiment found that men exposed to sexist television portrayals of women were more likely to send sexist jokes to women in an online interaction ( Galdi, Maass, and Cadinu 2014 ).

Laboratory experiments can also provide a snapshot of how women might respond in a sexually harassing situation. For example, research by Woodzicka and LaFrance (2001) reveals the difference between how women think they would respond and how they do respond. In the first study, college women were asked to imagine how they would respond to being asked sexist questions during a job interview. In the second study, women participated in what they thought to be an actual job interview where such questions were asked. Results showed a disconnect between what women thought they would do (get angry, confront, and complain) and what they actually did (become fearful, neither confront nor complain).

On the other hand, there are also limitations to laboratory experiments. While they can reveal responses to actual behaviors, those reactions occur in an artificial laboratory setting (not a real professional or educational setting, with people who have real relationships, interdependencies, status hierarchies, etc.). Participants in experiments are often college students who have limited work experience and diversity (primarily white, middle class, under the age of 20). Also, experiments provide a snapshot of only one moment of time, providing a single look at behaviors and responses. Surveys and accounts from litigants in sexual harassment cases suggest that the worst cases of sexual harassment are not isolated incidents, but something that takes place over a period of time ( Cantalupo and Kidder 2017a , 2017b ), which experiments cannot assess.

Interviews, Case Studies, and Other Qualitative Methods

Qualitative research offers a wide range of methodologies that can be useful in understanding sexual harassment, though it is best known for individual, semi-structured interviews ( Bazeley 2003 ). Qualitative research can also be conducted in focus groups, bringing together similar constituencies in order to facilitate conversations among participants. Several social science disciplines also use ethnographic or autoethnographic methods. Ethnography is a systematic way of participating and observing in particular settings or cultures to answer research questions about the intersection of culture and lived experience, where autoethnography invites researchers to reflect on their personal experiences, and connect those experiences to a wider research question. For instance, much of the early work on sexual harassment in the field sciences was either interviews or autoethnography, particularly among cultural anthropologists, who often conduct their field work alone (e.g., Sharp and Kremer 2006 ). Qualitative approaches also include textual analysis of existing primary sources (e.g., studying science syllabi or job postings for gendered language), and case studies or narratives, where a single story is followed in depth. Case study data is often collected via interview, the difference being that rather than interviewing a large enough number to achieve saturation, a researcher will go for greater depth with each participant to construct a more detailed narrative (e.g., Banerjee and Pawley 2013 ).

Qualitative approaches are widely recognized as the method of choice for generating insight into complex phenomena, the contexts in which they occur, and their consequences ( Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall 2013 ). Such methods are thought to be particularly well suited to providing key background information and highlighting the experiences and perceptions of targets of oppression, such as those who have experienced sexual harassment. The approach also gives a voice to perspectives that tend not to be heard or to those with experiences that have few precedents in prior research ( Sofaer 1999 ).

Sociolegal Methods

Sociolegal studies is an interdisciplinary field in which scholars use all the research methods described above (surveys, experiments, interviews, case studies, ethnography) to study a wide range of topics about formal laws, law-like systems of rules, and the social and political relationships that help constitute what law is ( Banakar and Travers 2005 ). Legal research methods are also a part of sociolegal methods, and these include doctrinal analysis, legal history and doctrinal development studies, and answering questions about exactly what formal legal rules exist across jurisdictions and interrelated areas of law, where there is often ambiguity and conflict. Sociolegal scholars are, of course, attentive to what formal rules and laws actually exist (with sexual harassment, it is Title VII and Title IX doctrines), but a starting approach is to presume that what law is and how it works is much more complex than doctrinal study alone can reveal.

Sociolegal research methods tend to be based in the empirical, observational social sciences supported by legal research. Classic studies using these methods have documented how ordinary people generally resolve their disputes using local customs and norms rather than formal law ( Macaulay 1963 ; Ellickson 1991 ); how bringing a personal injury claim in a small community is a mark of outsider, subordinated status ( Engel 1984 ); and how difficult it can be for people who have experienced discrimination to use legal protections, because doing so causes them to feel victimized again ( Bumiller 1992 ). These types of sociolegal studies share the strengths and limitations of ethnographic and qualitative research methods generally: on the one hand, they can capture the rich contextual detail of a particular setting, group of people, and set of relationships, but on the other hand, they are limited in time and location, and do not yield broadly generalizable claims. Nonetheless, decades of research using these methods have yielded a considerable body of research that strongly suggests that what the formal law is and what people understand it to be are often quite far apart; that using formal systems to make claims about wrongs done to them is a very difficult thing for most people to do, though it can be empowering and produce social change; and that laws and the legal system typically support existing power structures rather than fundamentally reshape them ( Freeman 1978 ; Edelman 2016 ; Berrey, Nelson, and Nielsen 2017 ).

A sociolegal research method requires study of the law at many levels of experience to approach sexual harassment, for example, because it matters just as much what women think they deserve or will likely get as what the law formally offers them. Anna-Maria Marshall’s study of sexual harassment experiences among female staff members at a midwestern university in 1997–1998, for example, combined in-depth interviewing of 25 female staff members with legal analysis at the national level, policy analysis at the university level, and a survey sent to 1,000 female employees selected at random from a university workplace to understand what counted as sexual harassment from their perspectives ( Marshall 2005 ). Whether something in a science, engineering, and medicine

educational or workplace setting is sexual harassment is a category of experience for everyone involved, in other words, that must be assigned meaning, obligations, rights, duties, and processes.

Sociolegal scholars can also bridge between the social science methodologies and the law through research on what they call the “iceberg” or the “tip-of-the-iceberg” problem. The tip-of-the-iceberg problem is the recognition by researchers that published legal disputes are a very skewed and systematically unrepresentative sample from the universe of disputes. As Peter Siegelman and John Donohue (1990) describe the problem, “Most potential disputes never get defined by the actors as such, most actual disputes don’t go to court, most court cases are settled rather than adjudicated, and most adjudicated cases are not appealed” (1133). Their analysis of published and unpublished district court opinions suggests that cases that reach the stage of a published judicial opinion may concern newer areas of case law or more dramatic or unusual circumstances that help explain why these cases were not disposed of earlier and before they appear for researchers to find. Publication as a legal outcome is one of the only ways a sexual harassment case could come to be known and studied, but there are many more legally protected routes to keeping cases and their outcomes from view. Confidential settlements, nondisclosure agreements, confidential notations in an academic or employment record, and dispositions of complaints that are not written down are all outcomes that cannot be studied, tracked, counted, or assessed.

Even when legal scholars attempt to collect samples of hundreds of sexual harassment claims, such as Ann Juliano and Stewart J. Schwab’s 2000 survey of every reported federal district and appellate court ruling on sexual harassment between 1986 and 1995, totaling nearly 650, they concede that these cases are not representative of the universe of incidents. Juliano and Schwab found that the most successful cases involved sexual conduct directed at a specific target in a mostly male workplace that the target had complained about but which the employer had failed to respond to with any formal process ( Juliano and Schwab 2000 , 593). Another study, Nancy Chi Cantalupo and William Kidder’s (2017b) recent study of sexual harassment in the academic context, attempts to pull cases from as far down the iceberg as possible, drawing in incidents recorded in more venues than the usual publication sources for judicial opinions, including media reports, administrative civil rights investigations at the Departments of Education and Justice, published lawsuits by students, and lawsuits over reinstatement for faculty members fired for sexual harassment. Cantalupo and Kidder find more physical (as opposed to verbal) harassment conduct and more evidence of serial harassers in documented complaints than survey researchers have found, for example. Even if they are not based in representative samples of cases and thus cannot be used to generalize about harassment rates, studies such as these can still yield important research conclusions about sexual harassment adjudications and judicial attitudes toward them.

PREVALENCE OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Studies on sexual harassment from the 1980s through today continue to show that sexual harassment of women is widespread in workplaces and that the rates of sexual harassment have not significantly decreased. Studies have also identified common characteristics of sexual harassment in different workplaces and uncovered characteristics of workplaces that are associated with higher rates of sexual harassment. This section and the next one review what research can tell us about the trends in sexual harassment rates over time and what the common characteristics are of sexual harassment and sexually harassing environments.

Wherever possible, the report cites the most recent scientific studies of a topic. That said, the empirical research into sexual harassment, using rigorous scientific methods, dates back to the 1980s. This report cites conclusions from the earlier work when those results reveal historical trends or patterns over time. It also cites results from earlier studies when there is no theoretical reason to expect findings to have changed with the passage of time. For example, the inverse relationship between sexual harassment and job satisfaction is a robust one: the more an individual is harassed on the job, the less she or he likes that job. That basic finding has not changed over the course of 30 years, and there is no reason to expect that it will.

To access the trends in prevalence for sexual harassment, ideally we would examine longitudinal data that uses a well-validated behavior-based instrument for different workplaces and industries; unfortunately, this data is not available. The U.S. Merit System Protection Board (USMSPB) was one of the first organizations to study sexual harassment, with a focus on the federal workforce, which includes a variety of job types and workplace environments. The USMSPB surveys, conducted in 1980, 1987, 1994, and 2016, asked scientifically selected samples of federal workers about their experiences of specific forms of sexual harassment 7 at work in the past 24 months. These surveys used behavioral questions; however, they did not use the SEQ, and in earlier years the survey did not ask about nonsexualized forms of gender harassment such as sexist comments, which are known to be the most common form of sexual harassment ( Kabat-Farr and Cortina 2014 ). As a result, this is not a good source of longitudinal data covering all three forms of sexual harassment.

This survey does, however, provide an opportunity to assess a population’s understanding of the term sexual harassment. The USMSPB conducted surveys that asked respondents whether they would classify certain behaviors as “sexual harassment.” The results showed that from 1980 to 2016 the proportion of respondents who classify the behaviors as sexual harassment rose, demonstrating

7 The 1980 survey used 6 forms of “unwanted, uninvited sexual harassment,” the 1987 survey used 7 (adding rape and sexual assault), the 1994 survey used 8 (adding rape and stalking), and the 2016 survey used 12 forms (adding gender harassment types). The original six categories remained consistent throughout the years.

an improvement in the population’s understanding of that term. The percentage of men who believe that pressuring a female coworker for sexual favors is sexual harassment rose from 65 percent in 1980 to 93 percent in 1994 and to 97 percent in 2016. Likewise, the percentage of men who perceived unwanted sexual remarks in the workplace as being sexual harassment rose from 42 percent in 1980 to 64 percent in 1994 and to 94 percent in 2016. There was also an increase seen in the perceptions of women—the percentage of women who considered a coworker’s sexual remarks as sexual harassment rose from 54 percent in 1980 to 77 percent in 1994 and to 95 percent in 2016. It is also significant to note that of respondents experiencing sexual harassing behaviors in the 2016 survey, only about 11 percent took any kind of formal action, such as filing a complaint or report with their organization ( USMSPB 2018 ). As the results just discussed demonstrate, this lack of reporting was not due to respondents inaccurately defining sexual harassment; rather, it reflects a reluctance by people to take formal action, which will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 4 .

The U.S. military is the other organization to study sexual harassment through large surveys early on and over multiple years. Starting in 1995 and going to 2012 8 the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) has used an SEQ-format survey that asked about more than 20 specific sex- or gender-related behaviors experienced in the past 12 months. As shown in the results in Table 2-1 , the data demonstrate that the prevalence of all three types of sexual harassment has been consistent. It also demonstrates that the gender-harassing form of sexual harassment (broken out into crude and offensive behavior and sexist behavior) is by far the most prevalent type of sexually harassing behavior, a finding that is consistent with research in other workplace settings ( Kabat-Farr and Cortina 2014 ).

Given that there is limited longitudinal data on the prevalence of sexual harassment that uses a well-validated behavior-based instrument, the best analysis of the prevalence of sexual harassment across workplaces and time comes from a meta-analysis by Ilies and colleagues (2003) . Based on more than 86,000 respondents from 55 probability samples, Illies and colleagues demonstrate that on average, 58 percent of women experience sexually harassing behaviors at work.

8 After the 2012 survey, the military asked the RAND Corporation to conduct a new survey revising the methodology as needed. The result was a significant change in how sexual harassment was defined in the analysis, and thus the prevalence numbers cannot easily be compared with the previous series of surveys. Whereas previous surveys assessed the prevalence of sexually harassing behaviors, the RAND survey used behavior-based questions to determine the prevalence rate of legally defined sexual harassment, meaning that they asked questions and grouped results based on hostile work environment and quid pro quo harassment. While quid pro quo harassment maps cleanly to sexual coercion, hostile work environment requires the condition that the sexually harassing behaviors (such as gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention) be considered by the respondent to be pervasive or severe—essentially requiring a frequency or severity assessment that had not been previously used. With this much narrower definition of “what counts” as harassing behavior, the 2016 survey yielded a lower overall rate of sexual harassment for women over a 12-month time period: 21.4 percent ( RAND 2016 ).

TABLE 2-1 Rate of Active Duty Military Women Experiencing Sexually Harassing Behaviors at Least Once in the Past 12 Months as Measured in 2000, 2006, 2010, and 2012

SOURCE: DMDC 2003 , 2008 , 2011 , 2013 .

Looking further into the different workplace sectors, the researchers found that there was some variation between sectors, with the prevalence ranging from 43 to 69 percent (this is discussed further in Chapter 3 when comparing the academic environment to other sectors). Their analysis of trends over time revealed that over the 25 years examined, women who responded to surveys with behavioral-based instruments (and which used a probability sample) reported increasingly more experiences of sexual harassment. The authors note that their data cannot investigate the reasons for this change, and that only a time-trend analysis of data obtained from the same instruments can truly answer the question of what is the trend in prevalence rates.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND SEXUALLY HARASSING ENVIRONMENTS

Rigorous survey research has identified common characteristics of sexual harassment. This work pushes against some of the main assumptions made on what it is, as well as how sexual harassment affects the targets, the bystanders, and the atmosphere of work and education settings. Here the chapter describes some of the aspects of sexual harassment that are strongly supported by the literature. However, we note that the data on varying experiences of sexual harassment of women of color, sexual minorities, and gender minorities is sparse, so these characteristics are likely to reflect the experience of majority women.

Characteristics of Sexual Harassment

Women are more likely to be sexually harassed than men and to experience sexual harassment at higher frequencies ( USMSPB 1995 ; Magley, Hulin et al. 1999 ; Ilies et al. 2003 ; Kabat-Farr and Cortina 2014 ). The 2012 DMDC survey results shown in Table 2-2 demonstrate that across all three types of sexual harassment, female personnel, compared with their male counterparts, were more

TABLE 2-2 Rate of Active Duty Military Women and Men Experiencing Sexually Harassing Behaviors at Least Once in the Past 12 Months

SOURCE: DMDC 2013 .

likely to have experienced at least one instance of sexually harassing conduct over the prior 12 months. Likewise, in the 1994 USMSPB study of federal workers, it found more women (44 percent) than men (19 percent) describing experiences of any of seven types of sexually harassing behavior in the past 2 years at work ( USMSPB 1995 ). In a more recent study using the SEQ, Rosenthal, Smidt, and Freyd (2016) surveyed 525 graduate students regarding their exposure to sexual harassment while in graduate school. Female students were 1.64 times more likely to have experienced sexually harassing behavior from faculty or staff (38 percent) compared with male students (23 percent). Though the occasional survey reports no significant gender difference (e.g., Konik and Cortina 2008 ) in a specific group, many studies have found women encountering more sexually harassing conduct than men encounter.

The overwhelming majority of sexual harassment involves some form of gender harassment (the put-downs of sexual harassment that include sexist hostility and crude behavior). Unwanted sexual attention is the next most common form of sexual harassment, and only a small minority of women experience sexual coercion. For instance, Schneider, Swan, and Fitzgerald (1997) analyzed data from two samples of women: factory workers and university faculty/staff. In both samples, gender harassment was by far the most common experience: 54–60 percent of women described some encounter with gender harassment, either with or without unwanted sexual attention. In contrast, sexual coercion was rare, described by approximately 4 percent of women in each sample. Moreover, sexual coercion never took place without unwanted sexual attention and gender harassment. When analyzing the sexual harassment of graduate students, Rosenthal, Smidt, and Freyd (2016) found that 59 percent of harassment incidents involved some form of gender harassment, while only 5 percent included unwanted touching, and less than 4 percent entailed sexual coercion. In another study, Leskinen, Cortina, and Kabat (2011) analyzed survey data from two samples of women who work in highly male-dominated sectors: the military and the law. Focusing only on data from women who had encountered at least one sexually harassing behavior in the prior year, they found that 9 of every 10 people who experienced sexual harassment had encountered gender harassment with little or no unwanted

sexual attention or coercion. While a recent national survey of 615 working men found that of the 25 percent of male respondents that admitted they had done at least one sexually harassing behavior in the last year, the most common form was gender harassment and the least common was sexual coercion ( Patel, Griggs, and Miller 2017 ).

That gender harassment is the most common type of sexual harassment is an unexpected finding in terms of what constitutes sexual harassment because unwanted sexual advances and sexual coercion are the most commonly reported both in official Title IX/Human Resources documentation ( Cantalupo and Kidder 2017a , 2017b ) and in the media. 9 This is in part why the misguided idea that sexual harassment is about sex has persisted.

In the vast majority of incidents of sexual harassment of women, men are the perpetrators. For instance, in the 1994 USMSPB study, 93 percent of sexually harassed women reported their perpetrators to be male ( USMSPB 1995 ). The DMDC’s 1995 study turned up remarkably similar results, with 92 percent of sexually harassed women describing male perpetrators ( Magley, Waldo et al. 1999 ). In Rosenthal, Smidt, and Freyd’s (2016) study of the sexual harassment of graduate students, among those who had been sexually harassed by faculty/staff, 86 percent of women described their harassers as male. Even when men are the targets of sexually harassing conduct, more often than not the perpetrator is also male (see also Kabat-Farr and Cortina 2014 ; Magley, Waldo et al. 1999 ).

Women are frequently harassed by coworkers and other employees (for students, it is fellow peers); superiors are not the most common perpetrators 10 ( USMSPB 1995 , 2018 ; AAUW 2005 ; Schneider, Pryor, and Fitzgerald 2011 ; Rosenthal, Smidt, and Freyd 2016 ). For example, in Rosenthal, Smidt, and Freyd’s (2016) study of graduate students, 38 percent of female participants self-reported that they had experienced sexual harassment from faculty or staff, while 58 percent described sexual harassment from other students. In a study by Huerta and colleagues (2006) , student targets of sexual harassment described the harassing experience that bothered them the most. Fully three-quarters of these targets indicated the perpetrator of this “most bothersome” incident to be a peer (fellow student), whereas only one-quarter had perpetrators who were higher-status individuals (staff, faculty, or administrators).

9 See, for example, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fjodi-kantor ; https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/us/gwyneth-paltrow-angelina-jolie-harvey-weinstein.html?rref=collection%2Fbyline%2Fjodi-kantor&action=click&contentCollection=undefined&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=collection ; https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/geoff-marcy-at-sfsu?utm_term=.phP5anr0n#.kprpq6Gj6 ; https://www.buzzfeed.com/azeenghorayshi/ott-harassment-investigation?utm_term=.vi3ByvlNv#.wm83947r4 ; and https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxnews-lawsuit/ex-fox-news-anchor-accuses-former-boss-ailes-of-sexual-harassment-idUSKCN0ZM21I .

10 One obvious factor that contributes to this difference is that there are most often more coworkers or peers than there are superiors.

Targets of sexual harassment often face repeated sexually harassing behaviors rather than one single incident. Rosenthal, Smidt, and Freyd’s 2016 study of graduate students, in which 38 percent of women had encountered sexual harassment from faculty/staff and 58 percent had faced sexual harassment from students, only a small fraction (one-third or less) of these women described their harassment experience as being limited to a single incident. This confirms earlier research using data from the 1987 USMSPB survey, in which researchers found that “75 percent of those experiencing sexual teasing and jokes reported that it was not a one-time occurrence, and 54 percent of those pressured for sexual favors reported that it had occurred more than once ( USMSPB 1988 ). For most women, the harassment lasted more than a week, and often as long as 6 months” ( Schneider, Swan, and Fitzgerald 1997 , 402).

Sexual Harassment Among Women of Color and Sexual- and Gender-Minority Women

What is known about women’s experiences is that those who have multiple marginalities—for instance women of color and sexual- and gender-minority women—experience certain kinds of harassment at greater rates than other women (e.g., Buchanan, Settles, and Woods 2008 ; Clancy et al. 2017 ; Cortina 2004 ; Cortina et al. 1998 ; Konik and Cortina 2008 ; Rabelo and Cortina 2014 ). Additionally, the cultural context in which people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds operate, as well as when they are numerically less represented in a workplace, can have effects on how they experience sexual harassment ( Cortina et al. 2002 ; Welsh et al. 2006 ). Thus, there is a wide spectrum of vulnerabilities, experiences, and consequences for women of color and gender minorities who are sexually harassed in the workplace.

As a field of study and as an analytical lens, intersectionality provides a framework to make visible the mutually constitutive relationship among race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, and other social positions that affect targets’ experiences of harassment ( Collins 2015 ). It is rooted in Black feminism and Critical Race Theory and also makes visible intersecting axes of oppression that contribute to power hierarchies within a social structure related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. Addressing the legacy of exclusions of black women, legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw used the concept of intersectionality to highlight the intersection of race and gender discrimination and how treating them as exclusive, and not intertwined, rendered the discrimination and multiple marginalities faced by black women invisible to antidiscrimination law ( Crenshaw 1989 , 1991 ). More recently, Crenshaw described intersectionality as a work in progress to denote the movement in and broadening of its use across disciplines and to a wider range of social locations ( Carbado 2013 ; Crenshaw 2014 ).

Some scholars have applied an intersectional lens to examine the sexual harassment experiences of women of color, though research in this area is still

very limited. It is important to prioritize the study of sexual harassment among noncisgender (cisgender means feeling aligned with the gender you were assigned at birth), nonstraight, nonwhite women when considering the impact of sexual harassment within an organization. Recent research that has begun to look at sexual harassment through the lens of intersectionality reveals how the experiences of women of color compare with that of white women, white men, and men of color. This research demonstrates that women of color and sexual- and gender-minority women sometimes experience sexual harassment differently from other populations. Women of color often experience sexual harassment as a manifestation of both gender and race discrimination ( Cortina et al. 2002 ; Murrell 1996 ), which combined can lead to higher rates of overall harassment ( Berdahl and Moore 2006 ; Woods, Buchanan, and Settles 2009 ).

The RTI International interviews 11 were able to glean complexities of intersectionality and sexually harassing behavior. Respondents noted that the issues of sexual- and gender-based harassment are often overpowered by how other issues such as race and sexual orientation intersect with their lived experience as women. These women noted an inability to disentangle discrimination and biases as stemming either from gender or their intersecting identities ( RTI 2018 ).

And then there’s a lot of fairly overt transphobia in my institution, I think. And I don’t really know what to make of it. But there’s sort of . . . traditional old Southern set of gendered expectations and norms that if you don’t fit them, it’s pretty clear what people think, and they don’t have to say a lot about it for you to know, you know what I mean? ( Nontenure-track faculty member in nursing )

What I’ve concluded is that [much] of my push towards and tenacity around equality and equity actually lands on race. I think part of that is because I’ve been more affronted by my race than my gender, at least more overtly. Meaning, I’ve had people say to my face I don’t want to be taking care of that black person, oh, you speak articulate for a black person. These micro-aggressions that go out there and statements and these innuendos. ( Nontenure-track faculty member in medicine )

These studies demonstrate that an individual’s identity can affect how sexual harassment is perpetrated.

Likewise, lesbian, gay, and bisexual women encounter forms of harassment that reflect a combination of sexism and heterosexism ( Konik and Cortina 2008 ; Rabelo and Cortina 2014 ). Nonbinary individuals, on the other hand, must negotiate their identities within the constructs of the gender binary that is still prevalent today ( Dietert and Dentice 2009 ). A study by Irwin (2002) examined workplace discrimination in the education sector in Australia among gay men, lesbians, and transgender individuals. Irwin found that greater than 60 percent of teachers,

11 This research was commissioned by the committee and the full report on this research is available in Appendix C .

academics, and educators who identified as lesbian, gay, or transgender have experienced homophobic behavior and/or harassment, and have been discriminated against in the workplace. The study also found that 16 percent of the individuals who identified as lesbian, gay, or transgender have been sexually harassed, and one participant was sexually assaulted.

The research on sexual minorities has shown that this population experiences more sexual harassment than heterosexual individuals. In a study of 629 employees in higher education, nearly 76.9 percent of sexual minorities (of both genders) experienced gender harassment, whereas only 30 percent of heterosexuals (of both genders) experienced gender harassment ( Konik and Cortina 2008 ). This trend continued for the other forms of sexual harassment (unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion): 39.7 percent of sexual minorities experienced these types, whereas only 15.5 percent of heterosexuals experienced these types. In another study the prevalence and impact of heterosexist harassment, which is insensitive verbal and symbolic (but nonassaultive) behaviors that convey animosity toward nonheterosexuality, was examined among students. The study specifically looked at how experiences of this type of harassment affected sexual minorities and heterosexuals differently and found that sexual minorities were more likely to experience heterosexist harassment than heterosexuals (58 percent and 39 percent, respectively), and when sexual minorities experienced the harassment, they were equally likely to experience it directed at them as in an ambient form (53 percent and 47 percent, respectively) ( Silverschanz et al. 2008 ).

Characteristics of Sexually Harassing Environments

By far, the greatest predictors of the occurrence of sexual harassment are organizational. Individual-level factors (e.g., sexist attitudes, beliefs that rationalize or justify harassment, etc.) that might make someone decide to harass a work colleague, student, or peer are surely important. However, a person that has proclivities for sexual harassment will have those behaviors greatly inhibited when exposed to role models who behave in a professional way as compared with role models who behave in a harassing way, or when in an environment that does not support harassing behaviors and/or has strong consequences for these behaviors. Thus, this section considers some of the organizational and environmental variables that increase the risk of sexual harassment perpetration.

Women working in environments where men outnumber women, leadership is male-dominated, and/or jobs or occupations are considered atypical for women experience more frequent incidents of sexual harassment ( USMSPB 1995 ; Fitzgerald et al. 1997 ; Berdahl 2007b ; Willness, Steel, and Lee 2007 ; Schneider, Pryor, and Fitzgerald 2011 ). In particular, the more male-dominated the work environment, the more women experience the gender harassment form of sexual harassment. For example, in one study looking at the effect of workplace gender balance, the researchers analyzed data from women employees of the federal

courts. When comparing women who work in gender-balanced workgroups (i.e., equal numbers of men and women in the workgroup) with those who work with almost all men, the researchers reported women in the latter category were 1.68 times more likely to encounter gender harassment ( Kabat-Farr and Cortina 2014 ).

The historical and cultural context of a work or education environment is of high relevance to the study of sexual harassment as well, since environments that are no longer male dominated in gender ratio may still be male dominated in their work practices, culture, or behavioral expectations.

The perceived absence of organizational sanctions increases the risk of sexual harassment perpetration. Perceptions of organizational tolerance for sexual harassment (also referred to as organizational climate for sexual harassment), are broken down into three categories: (1) the perceived risk to targets for complaining, (2) a perceived lack of sanctions against offenders, and (3) the perception that one’s complaints will not be taken seriously ( Hulin, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow 1996 ). Research has shown that perceptions of an organization’s tolerance for all three forms of sexually harassing behavior are significantly related to both direct and ambient sexual harassment. In environments that are perceived as more tolerant or permissive of sexual harassment, women are more likely to be directly harassed ( Fitzgerald et al. 1997 ; Williams, Fitzgerald, and Drasgow 1999 ) and to witness harassment of others ( Glomb et al. 1997 ). In fact, one meta-analysis that combined data from 41 studies with a total sample size of nearly 70,000 respondents found perception of organizational tolerance to be the most potent predictor of sexual harassment in work organizations ( Willness, Steel, and Lee 2007 ). In a recent national survey of 615 working men ( Patel, Griggs, and Miller 2017 ), sexually harassing behavior was more commonly reported “among men who say their company does not have guidelines against harassment, hotlines to report it or punishment for perpetrators, or who say their managers don’t care.”

Social situations in which sexist views and sexually harassing behavior are modeled can enable, facilitate, or even encourage sexually harassing behaviors, while, conversely, positive role models can inhibit sexually harassing behavior ( Dekker and Barling 1998 ; Perry, Schmidtke, and Kulik 1998 ; Pryor, LaVite, and Stoller 1993 ). In one study, college men who had professed a willingness to sexually coerce were found to be more likely to sexually exploit a female trainee when they were exposed to an authority figure who acted in a sexually exploitive way ( Pryor, LaVite, and Stoller 1993 ). Hitlan and colleagues (2009) found that viewing a sexist film enhanced the tendency among the less sexist men to perform acts of gender harassment. In another experiment, men who viewed sexist TV clips were more likely to send women unsolicited sexist jokes and more likely to profess a willingness to engage in sexual coercion than men who watched programs portraying young, successful women in domains such as science, culture, and business ( Maass, Cadinu, and Galdi 2013 ). Conversely, experiments show that sexual harassment is less likely to occur if those behaviors are not accepted by authority figures ( Pryor, LaVite, and Stoller 1993 ). So, while social situations

do not necessarily function as triggers for existing predilections to sexually harass, they can act as a force encouraging or discouraging men to sexually harass, demonstrating the power of practiced social norms (e.g., the social norms communicated by the actions of the people in an environment rather than their words or the words from official policy for an organization).

Other factors that research suggests increase the chances of sexual harassment perpetration are significant power differentials within hierarchical organizations and organizational tolerance of alcohol use. Hierarchical work environments like the military, where there is a large power differential between organizational levels and an expectation is not to question those higher up, tend to have higher rates of sexual harassment than organizations that have less power differential between the organizational levels, like the private sector and government ( Ilies et al. 2003 ; Schneider, Pryor, and Fitzgerald 2011 ). Environments that allow drinking during work breaks and have permissive norms related to drinking are positively associated with higher levels of gender harassment of women ( Bacharach, Bamberger, and McKinney 2007 ). Culturally, these are, again, patterns more common in currently or historically male-dominated workplaces.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

• Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination that consists of three types of harassing behavior: (1) gender harassment (verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey hostility, objectification, exclusion, or second-class status about members of one gender); (2) unwanted sexual attention (unwelcome verbal or physical sexual advances, which can include assault); and (3) sexual coercion (when favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity). The distinctions between the types of harassment are important, particularly because many people do not realize that gender harassment is a form of sexual harassment.
• Sexually harassing behavior can be either direct (targeted at an individual) or ambient (a general level of sexual harassment in an environment) and is harmful in both cases. It is considered illegal when it creates a hostile environment (gender harassment or unwanted sexual attention that is “severe or pervasive” enough to alter the conditions of employment, interfere with one’s work performance, or impede one’s ability to get an education) or when it is quid pro quo sexual harassment (when favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity).
• There are reliable scientific methods for determining the prevalence of sexual harassment. To measure the incidence of sexual harassment, surveys should follow the best practices that have emerged from the science of sexual harassment. This includes use of the Sexual Experiences

Questionnaire, the most widely used and well-validated instrument available for measuring sexual harassment; assessment of specific behaviors without requiring the respondent to label the behaviors “sexual harassment”; focus on first-hand experience or observation of behavior (rather than rumor or hearsay); and focus on the recent past (1–2 years, to avoid problems of memory decay). Relying on the number of official reports of sexual harassment made to an organization is not an accurate method for determining the prevalence.

• Some surveys underreport the incidence of sexual harassment because they have not followed standard and valid practices for survey research and sexual harassment research.
• While properly conducted surveys are the best methods for estimating the prevalence of sexual harassment, other salient aspects of sexual harassment and its consequences can be examined using other research methods , such as behavioral laboratory experiments, interviews, case studies, ethnographies, and legal research. Such studies can provide information about the presence and nature of sexually harassing behavior in an organization, how it develops and continues (and influences the organizational climate), and how it attenuates or amplifies outcomes from sexual harassment.
• Women experience sexual harassment more often than men do.
• Gender harassment (e.g., behaviors that communicate that women do not belong or do not merit respect) is by far the most common type of sexual harassment. When an environment is pervaded by gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion become more likely to occur—in part because unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion are almost never experienced by women without simultaneously experiencing gender harassment.
• Men are more likely than women to commit sexual harassment.
• Coworkers and peers more often commit sexual harassment than do superiors.
• Sexually harassing behaviors are not typically isolated incidents; rather, they are a series or pattern of sometimes escalating incidents and behaviors.
• Research that does not include the study of women of color and sexual- and gender-minority women presents an incomplete picture of women’s experiences of sexual harassment. The preliminary research on the experiences of women of color, and sexual- and gender-minority women reveals that their experiences of sexual harassment can differ from the larger population of cisgender, straight, white women.
• Women of color experience more harassment (sexual, racial/ethnic, or combination of the two) than white women, white men, and men of color do. Women of color often experience sexual harassment that includes racial harassment.
• Sexual- and gender-minority people experience more sexual harassment than heterosexual women do.
• The two characteristics of environments most associated with higher rates of sexual harassment are (a) male-dominated gender ratios and leadership and (b) an organizational climate that communicates tolerance of sexual harassment (e.g., leadership that fails to take complaints seriously, fails to sanction perpetrators, or fails to protect complainants from retaliation).
• Organizational climate is, by far, the greatest predictor of the occurrence of sexual harassment, and ameliorating it can prevent people from sexually harassing others. A person more likely to engage in harassing behaviors is significantly less likely to do so in an environment that does not support harassing behaviors and/or has strong, clear, transparent consequences for these behaviors.

Over the last few decades, research, activity, and funding has been devoted to improving the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in the fields of science, engineering, and medicine. In recent years the diversity of those participating in these fields, particularly the participation of women, has improved and there are significantly more women entering careers and studying science, engineering, and medicine than ever before. However, as women increasingly enter these fields they face biases and barriers and it is not surprising that sexual harassment is one of these barriers.

Over thirty years the incidence of sexual harassment in different industries has held steady, yet now more women are in the workforce and in academia, and in the fields of science, engineering, and medicine (as students and faculty) and so more women are experiencing sexual harassment as they work and learn. Over the last several years, revelations of the sexual harassment experienced by women in the workplace and in academic settings have raised urgent questions about the specific impact of this discriminatory behavior on women and the extent to which it is limiting their careers.

Sexual Harassment of Women explores the influence of sexual harassment in academia on the career advancement of women in the scientific, technical, and medical workforce. This report reviews the research on the extent to which women in the fields of science, engineering, and medicine are victimized by sexual harassment and examines the existing information on the extent to which sexual harassment in academia negatively impacts the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women pursuing scientific, engineering, technical, and medical careers. It also identifies and analyzes the policies, strategies and practices that have been the most successful in preventing and addressing sexual harassment in these settings.

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White men who have been mistreated at work are more likely to notice and report harassment − new research

Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan

Disclosure statement

Erin A. Cech receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

University of Michigan provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US.

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White men who have personally experienced mistreatment at work, such as bullying, are more likely to realize that their organization does not always operate fairly. And that makes them more likely to recognize and report race and gender bias against their co-workers, I found in a recent study.

As a sociologist who researches workplace inequality , I wondered whether the way white men in the U.S. are treated at work might be related to whether they recognize sexist and racist incidents that harm their colleagues.

To find out, I analyzed data from over 11,000 federal employees , including 5,011 white men employed by 28 government agencies, collected for a survey that measures the government’s progress toward eliminating personnel policy violations.

I found that although white men are mistreated less often than women and people of color, about 1 in 3 of them experienced some instance of bullying, intimidation or other form of harassment in the two years prior to the study. In comparison, 44% of white women, 49% of women of color and 35% of men of color experienced some form of harassment.

It turned out that white men who were targets of harassment were 70% more likely than other white men in their workplaces to recognize gender bias among their colleagues. They were 58% more likely to recognize bias against their racial or ethnic minority colleagues. They were also nearly twice as likely to have reported race and gender bias to their supervisors and colleagues when they witnessed it.

Why were white men who had been harassed more sensitive to bias in their workplace?

I found that they tended to be more skeptical that their organization worked fairly. For example, only one-third of white men who experienced harassment agreed with this statement: “Recognition and rewards are based on performance in my organization.” In contrast, two-thirds of white men who had not experienced harassment agreed with it. The skepticism among those who had experienced mistreatment increased their tendency to recognize and report bias against their colleagues.

Importantly, these patterns existed whether white men thought they were the target of harassment because of a social characteristic – such as their age, religion or sexual identity – or because of more idiosyncratic personality conflicts.

Why it matters

Many white men believe that their workplace operates according to merit : that people who are better at their jobs get promoted, while those who aren’t get demoted or fired. Yet race and gender bias are startlingly common in U.S. workplaces: More than 4 in 10 women have experienced gender discrimination, and 41% of Black workers have experienced racial discrimination at some point in their careers.

Rooting out gender and racial bias from the workplace requires the support of white men . Yet white men tend to stand up or speak out only to the extent they recognize the existence of bias in their workplaces and are willing to do something about it.

In recent years, there have been many efforts to identify the best strategies for reducing prejudice in the workplace. My findings suggest that encouraging white men to reflect on their own negative experiences at work may make them more open to acknowledging the mistreatment of colleagues.

What still isn’t known

I believe that it’s important for scholars to look into why white men who experience harassment become better allies when their colleagues who are women or people of color are mistreated on the job. It’s also worthwhile for researchers to explore whether patterns like the one I identified exist for other groups and in other contexts – including in other countries.

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How to identify bullying and harassment in the workplace

Bullying and harassment are two of the most common forms of misconduct in the workplace. Recent research has found that in the US and UK alone , over a quarter (26%) of office workers in each region have reported experiencing harassment or bullying at some point in their careers. In fact, the 2021 US Workplace Bullying Survey from the Workplace Bullying Institute noted that 30% of US workers had direct experience being bullied that year—up 57% from 2017.  

Workplace harassment and bullying can have serious effects on morale, productivity, and overall performance—both for individual employees and the business at large. However, knowing the types of behaviors and warning signs that indicate someone is being harassed or bullied at work can help create better prevention strategies and improve performance across the board. In this post, we’ll explain the different types of workplace harassment and bullying, provide examples, and share tips for how to spot bullying and harassment in the workplace.  

Workplace harassment and bullying examples 

Understanding the different types of workplace harassment and bullying is an important step in learning how to spot warning signs of these behaviors in the workplace. Let’s take a look at  some examples.

Types of workplace harassment 

The United Nations defines harassment as any improper and unwelcome conduct that might reasonably be expected or  perceived to annoy, alarm, abuse, demean, intimidate, belittle, humiliate, or embarrass another person. Harassment may take the form of words, gestures, or actions which create an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.  

Here are some examples of workplace harassment:  

• Discriminatory. This can be any unfair treatment or arbitrary distinction based on their protected classes such as race, color, religion, sex (including sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy), national origin, age, disability, or genetic information (including family medical history).    
• Physical or violent. This could involve making threats, destroying property, or physically intimidating or attacking someone else. This type of conduct in the workplace might be criminal and result in charges.  
• Online. This can happen during or outside work hours and might include things like sharing personal details about a coworker in a mass chat, spreading lies about a victim in an office chat, or sending repeated and unwelcome messages of a sexual nature to a coworker.
• Sexual. This can include unwelcome sexual advances, a request for favors of a sexual nature, verbal abuse, and physical altercations of a sexual nature. Likewise, hiring decisions or disciplinary decisions made on the basis or sex, gender, or sexual orientation can also fall into the realm of sexual harassment.
• Third-party. This occurs when a client, customer, contractor, or another person from outside of the business harasses an employee of the company. In many cases, victims of this type of harassment are in lower-level positions and are inexperienced, making them more vulnerable.  

Harassment becomes unlawful where:   

• Enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued employment.
• The misconduct is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.
• The misconduct must be objectionably viewed as inappropriate from the perspective of a reasonable person.    

Types of workplace bullying 

Bullying is also a common type of workplace harassment. Unlike harassment, bullying is not classified as illegal—but it can be classed as harassment if the behavior is repeated over time to the point that it creates an intimidating, hostile, or abusive environment.   

Here are some examples of workplace bullying:   

• Verbal. This could include mockery, humiliation, jokes, gossip, or other spoken abuse.   
• Intimidating. This might include threats, social exclusion in the workplace, spying, or other invasions of privacy. 
• Related to work performance. Examples include wrongful blame, work sabotage or interference, or stealing or taking credit for ideas. 
• Retaliatory. In some cases, talking about the bullying can lead to accusations of lying, further exclusion, refused promotions, or other retaliation. 
• Institutional. Institutional bullying happens when a workplace accepts, allows, and even encourages bullying to take place. This bullying might include unrealistic production goals, forced overtime, or singling out those who can’t keep up.  

A challenge with bullying is that it can be subtle. One helpful way to spot bullying in the workplace is to consider how others might view what’s happening. This can depend on the circumstances, but if most colleagues view a specific behavior as unreasonable the it is likely bullying behavior.  

How to identify bullying and harassment in the workplace 

Warning signs of workplace harassment or bullying can vary. Below are just some examples of how to spot whether you or someone you know is experiencing harassment or bullying at work.  

Spotting signs of workplace harassment 

• Coworkers make offensive or derogatory jokes directed at you or when you’re around.  
• Racial or ethnic slurs are used against you, even if the person saying them says it’s only in jest.  
• Someone pressures you for dates or sexual favors.  
• A colleague makes unwelcome comments about your religion or religious garments. 
• Your supervisor or manager, purposely or playfully, shoves you in a way that hurts or makes you uncomfortable.
• Someone keeps sending you offensive images or videos over chat or email, despite your protests to stop.  

Spotting signs of workplace bullying 

• Coworkers might become quiet or leave the room when you walk in, or they might simply ignore you.  
• You might be left out of office parties, team lunches, or casual chitchat.  
• Your supervisor or manager might check on you often or ask you to meet multiple times a week without a clear reason.  
• You may be asked to do new tasks or tasks outside your typical duties without training or help, even when you request it.  
• Your work may seem frequently monitored, to the point where you begin to doubt yourself and have difficulty with your regular tasks.
• You might be asked to do difficult or seemingly pointless tasks and be ridiculed or criticized when you can’t get them done.
• You may notice a pattern of your documents, files, equipment, or other work-related or personal items going missing.  

The key takeaway 

Everyone should have the right to work in an environment that is free of harassment and bullying. For companies to achieve this goal, employees of all position levels have to understand the different types of workplace harassment and bullying and how to spot the signs of this kind of behavior.  

To learn more about how to identify and prevent bullying and harassment in the workplace, request a demo  of LRN's newly designed anti-harassment, bullying, and discrimination training. 

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Victoria takes steps towards restricting non-disclosure agreements in workplace sexual harassment cases

The Victorian Government yesterday launched a discussion paper and 4-week consultation period on restricting non-disclosure agreements ( NDAs ) in workplace sexual harassment cases. The Government’s announcement focuses on the ‘silencing’ effect of NDAs, which is a major concern among victim-survivor advocates.

As outlined in our previous in-depth examination of the use of NDAs in workplace sexual harassment claims, there is no homogenous view on the use of NDAs in settling workplace sexual harassment claims, and certainly no one-size-fits-all solution to meeting the varying interests of parties in such matters. NDAs can be moulded to the facts of a case, but the current prevailing trend of using strict NDAs as standard practice is problematic – as reflected in the Victorian Government’s announcement – and has the potential to run counter to an employer’s positive duty to prevent workplace sexual harassment.

Importantly, the positive duty on employers to prevent workplace sexual harassment in section 47C of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) means that employers must act proactively to stop instances of sexual harassment and address systemic issues contributing to an environment where sexual harassment can occur, not just react after incidents occur.

As to the use of NDAs , organisations need to think carefully about balancing the use of confidentiality terms with the need to examine what the sexual harassment says about the company and its state of compliance with the positive duty . Reflecting on the potential elements of the Victorian reforms may present an opportunity to consider your organisation’s policy position on the use and design of NDAs, along with consulting and engaging stakeholders to align policies with actual practice.

Given the early, exploratory status of the Government’s consultation process, it remains to be seen how reforms may be crafted to strike a balance between complainant protection and the preservation of other non-harassment related confidentiality protections (for example, those under separation agreements and post-employment confidentiality policies).

What could the NDA reforms look like?

The discussion paper contemplates various potential elements (including retrospective application) which could form a legislative framework for restrictions on the use of NDAs, including:

• A prohibition on NDAs unless requested by the complainant
• A requirement that a complainant is offered independent legal advice – which may be at the employer’s expense – prior to entering into an NDA
• Mechanisms to ensure no attempts are made to unduly pressure or influence a complainant to enter into an NDA
• A requirement that the NDA does not adversely affect others (for example, to ensure employers can still take appropriate action to address sexual harassment in the workplace)
• A confidentiality ‘waiver option’ for complainants
• Time limitations on the duration of NDAs , whether by legislation or as agreed by parties to an NDA
• Pre-signing review periods , and cooling off periods for complainants
• Permitted disclosures of information about the relevant complaint to certain individuals and bodies , to ensure the complainant can seek support and advice
• A prescribed form of NDA or certain mandatory clauses

Where to from here in Victoria?

The Government is inviting feedback on the proposed legislative reforms, by way of submissions and survey responses, from now until 8 September 2024 . The Government is encouraging submissions from people who have experience of sexual harassment in the workplace, employers, employees, and their respective representatives, among other groups and stakeholders.

We will keep across the progress of the reforms.

The broader context

From a Victorian context, this consultation period follows the Victorian Government’s acceptance , in principle, of a 2022 recommendation of the Ministerial Taskforce on Workplace Sexual Harassment that the State legislate to restrict the use of NDAs , using the Irish Employment Equality (Amendment) (Non-Disclosure Agreements) Bill 2021 and lessons from jurisdictions such as the UK and US as a model for reform.

More broadly, this latest chapter in approaches to the use and regulation of NDAs in Australia also comes after the March 2024 release of the ‘Let’s talk about confidentiality’ report led by practitioners at the Human Rights Law Centre and Redfern Legal Centre, which investigated the use of NDAs in sexual harassment settlements since the release of the 2020 Respect@Work report (the latter of which cautioned the use of NDAs could “contribute to a culture of silence”). Based on a survey of sexual harassment legal practitioners across Australia, the 2024 report found that approximately 75% of the profession had never settled a sexual harassment complaint without a rigorous NDA , though there are some signs this practice is evolving.

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