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Considering her circumstances: How ethnicity and cultural relativist arguments affect sexual harassment judgments by undergraduate and community mock jurors
Author(s) -
Schwartz Samantha L.,
Hunt Jennifer S.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.972
Subject(s) - plaintiff , argument (complex analysis) , harassment , ethnic group , latin americans , affect (linguistics) , social psychology , relativism , population , psychology , cultural diversity , gender studies , sociology , political science , law , medicine , demography , philosophy , communication , epistemology
Most research on sexual harassment has involved undergraduate students and European Americans, whose perspectives may not be representative of the broader population. This study investigated whether judgments of a sexual harassment trial vary by plaintiff ethnicity (European American or Latin American), type of sample (undergraduates or community members) and mock juror ethnicity (European American or Latin American). We also tested the effects of a cultural relativist argument about Latin American cultural values influencing the plaintiff. Results indicated that community and Latin American mock jurors rendered more pro‐plaintiff verdicts, particularly when the case did not include a cultural relativist argument. Although the cultural relativist argument did not affect undergraduates' judgments, it caused a backlash among community members, leading to more pro‐defendant verdicts. Judgments across type of sample and mock juror ethnicity were partially mediated by self‐referencing and hostile sexism; affiliation with Latin American culture also predicted judgments of the Latina American plaintiff. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.