University of Padova, Italy.
University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy.
J Interpers Violence. 2021 Jul;36(13-14):6073-6097. doi: 10.1177/0886260518816326. Epub 2018 Dec 12.
Women's representation in social media is becoming increasingly sexualized, even when they are victims of sexual harassment (SH). In the present research, we adopted a bystander approach to investigate the role of victims' sexualization on bystanders' reactions to an episode of SH. In Study 1, female participants read a fictitious newspaper article that described a workplace SH episode: According to condition, the article included a picture of the victim who was wearing either sexualized or nonsexualized clothing. In Study 2, which also included male participants, we used a similar procedure and measured a series of traditional beliefs against women equality. As predicted, participants showed lower willingness to help the sexualized than nonsexualized victim: This effect occurred because they attributed lower morality to the victim and blamed her more for the SH event. Study 2 very well replicated Study 1 results and also showed that higher levels of endorsement of traditional masculine norms further enhanced biased perception of the sexualized (vs. nonsexualized) victim. Together, findings suggest that biased evaluations of workplace SH episodes associated with sexualized victims' appearance, consistent with traditional masculine norms, may have detrimental consequences by increasing legitimization and tolerance toward SH.
社交媒体中女性的形象越来越具有性化特征，即使她们是性骚扰的受害者也是如此。在本研究中，我们采用旁观者的方法来研究受害者的性化对旁观者对性骚扰事件的反应的作用。在研究 1 中，女性参与者阅读了一篇虚构的报纸文章，描述了一个工作场所性骚扰事件：根据条件，文章包括受害者的照片，受害者穿着性化或非性化的服装。在研究 2 中，也包括男性参与者，我们使用了类似的程序，并测量了一系列反对女性平等的传统观念。正如预测的那样，与非性化受害者相比，参与者表示不太愿意帮助性化受害者：这种影响是因为他们认为受害者的道德水平较低，并更多地指责她性骚扰事件。研究 2 很好地复制了研究 1 的结果，还表明，对传统男性规范的更高程度认可进一步增强了对性化（而非非性化）受害者的偏见感知。总之，研究结果表明，与性化受害者的外表相关的对工作场所性骚扰事件的有偏见的评价，与传统的男性规范一致，可能会通过增加对性骚扰的合法化和容忍度而产生不利后果。
