Group Gender Composition Effects on Judgments of Sexual Harassment

Abstract

This article examines the effects of participant gender, researcher gender, and group gender composition (ratio of women to men) on individual judgments about an ambiguous, hypothetical, sexual harassment grievance. The participants (116 men and 113 women) served on five-person mock hearing boards. A main effect for participant gender was found ( p < .01), with significantly more women (58.4%) making affirmative sexual harassment judgments than men (35.3%). A significant three-way interaction ( p < .01) revealed that, when led by male researchers, men in groups where they were the numerical minority (3 women/2 men) made significantly lower ratings, indicating less belief that sexual harassment had occurred ( M = 2.83), than those men in groups where they were in the majority (2 women/3 men, M = 4.87; 4 men/1 woman, M = 4.88). Ingroup and outgroup behavior observed by Rogers, Hennigan, Bowman, and Miller (1984) is proposed as a possible explanation for these results.