The identification and classification of reactions to sexual harassment

Distinct forms of reactions to sexual harassment were identified in the current study, and a classification scheme was developed based upon those reactions. One hundred forty two male and 100 female upper-division undergraduate management students and 44 working women read 18 randomly ordered scenarios, each of which depicted a woman being exposed to a different form of sexual harassment by a man. For each incident, the subjects were asked to write down what they themselves would do if they were in the woman's place. The resulting 5148 open-ended responses were systematically sorted into 10 classes of reaction types. In addition to assessing the reliability and validity of the classification scheme, the relative frequency of employment of the various classes was examined. Comparisons of the reactions of men and women students and comparisons of the reactions of working women and women students yielded few significant differences.