Sexual harassment: factors affecting attitudes and perceptions

Abstract

The overall findings suggest that while attitudes and perceptions of sexual harassment are related, they also differ, in that attitudes require value judgments to be made of behavior. This explains the high relationship between attitudes to sexual harassment and attitudes regarding gender role stereotypes. Sexist attitudes are associated with acceptance of sexual harassment. The impact of age and occupation on attitudes suggest that high school students adhere to gender role stereotypes and have a high tolerance of sexual harassment. However, this group's lack of experience in the world and, consequently, their limited exposure to attitudes that may challenge their current scripts and schemas, may be responsible for these findings.