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The Impact of Job Performance, Gender, and Ethnicity on the Managerial Review of Sexual Harassment Allegations 1
Author(s) -
Plater Michael A.,
Thomas Robert E.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1998.tb01653.x
Subject(s) - harassment , psychology , attribution , misconduct , ethnic group , sexual misconduct , social psychology , white (mutation) , affect (linguistics) , clinical psychology , criminology , political science , biochemistry , chemistry , law , gene , communication
This study examines the managerial review of sexual harassment allegations by subordinates against supervisors as a 2‐stage attribution process. In the 1st stage, reviewers decide whether the behavior was inappropriate (misconduct). In the 2nd, reviewers decide the level of company responsibility. The reviewers' 2 decisions are influenced in distinct ways by scenario participant job performance, and the genders and ethnicities of reviewer and scenario participants. Male respondents exhibited some bias for high‐performing same‐ethnicity supervisors—a bias not present in female responses. In the 2nd stage, female and non‐White reviewers assessed significantly higher levels of company responsibility than did male and White respondents. The data suggest that although men and women do not differ substantially over what constitutes misconduct, they do differ over the company's responsibility.