Paid Worker Role and Health 483occupations. This theory also applies to
men: Men who work with a large number of
women are more likely to experience sexual
harassment (Gutek & Done, 2000). Gender
roles also can be made salient when an oc-
cupation highlights one’s gender role. For
example, waitresses and secretaries may
suffer higher rates of sexual harassment
because their sex is salient (Gutek & Done,
2000).TAKE HOME POINTS
■ There are two kinds of sexual harassment: quid pro quo
and hostile environment.
■ Sexual harassmentis difficult to define because it
rests in part on how the recipient perceives the
behavior.
■ Sexual harassment ranges in severity from lewd com-
ments to sexual coercion; there is more agreement that a
behavior constitutes harassment when it is more severe.
■ Women are more likely than men to perceive a behav-
ior as harassment. There is more agreement between
women and men on the more severe forms of sexual
harassment.
■ Sexual harassment appears to be fairly common; the
most common forms are the less severe forms.
■ A psychological instrument, the LSH scale, has been de-
veloped to distinguish between men who are more and
less likely to harass.
■ Women in traditionally male occupations are more
likely to be harassed, perhaps because their presence
represents a threat to men.
■ Social psychological theories of sexual harassment
emphasize that the behavior is a product of both indi-
vidual difference variables (such as the LSH scale) and
situational variables (when the male role is threatened,
when women’s sex is made salient).norms are more likely to be victims of sexual
harassment supports this theory.
A social psychological perspective
conceptualizes sexual harassment as the
product of both personality factors and
situational factors. Sexual harassment is
a behavior that occurs among some of
the people some of the time (Pryor et al.,
1995). Characteristics of people who ha-
rass are addressed with Pryor’s (1998)
LSH scale. What are the environmen-
tal conditions that foster sexual harass-
ment? In one study, priming men with
a sexist film was associated with sexual
harassment (i.e., number of sexist ques-
tions asked of a female during a mock job
interview; Pryor et al., 2000). In another
study, men whose masculinity was threat-
ened by being outperformed by a female on
a masculine task were more likely to engage
in the same form of sexual harassment; that
is, ask sexist questions (Pryor et al., 2000).
Sexual harassment is most likely to oc-
cur in situations where it is perceived as ac-
ceptable or tolerated (Pryor et al., 1995). In
organizations where management condones
sexual harassment, the frequency increases.
Attending a school with a climate that con-
dones harassment is associated with lower
self-esteem, higher distress, and feelings
of unsafety at school for both females and
males (Ormerod et al., 2008).
Another theory of sexual harass-
ment that emphasizes the contribution of
situational variables issex-role spillover
theory, which suggests that expectations
about women’s and men’s roles carry over
to the workplace when they are not appro-
priate or relevant (Tangri & Hayes, 1997).
This theory implies that sexual harassment
is more likely to occur when gender is sa-
lient (Gutek & Done, 2000). Gender is sa-
lient when women work in male-dominatedM12_HELG0185_04_SE_C12.indd 483 6/21/11 1:26 PM