It's Not Just "Bad Apples" - It's Also About the Barrel: Critically Analyzing Organizational and Social Factors in Sexual Harassment Rates and Outcomes

Sexual harassment is jarringly common in the workplace and is associated with a number of negative psychological and occupational outcomes. Decades of sexual harassment research point to power, male-dominated workplaces (i.e., organizations where men hold most high-power positions), and climate (i.e., the norms about how employees relate to one another at work) as critical factors that predict the frequency of workplace sexual harassment. My research extends this literature by taking a more nuanced approach to examining the ways in which power and climate contribute to sexual harassment rates and outcomes. In a sample of over 3,000 doctors and nurses at Michigan Medicine, I found that perceptions of an uninclusive climate (e.g., more racist, sexist, and homophobic, and more of a masculinity contest) mediated the associations between increased sexual harassment and decreased job satisfaction and sense of safety at work, and increased turnover intentions. This research is critically important as it extends our understanding of the specific mechanisms through which sexual harassment harms its targets. Accordingly, my findings call organizations to not only prevent sexual harassment at work, but also to take action to address organizational factors that contribute to its harms. Furthermore, like other forms of workplace mistreatment, sexual harassment fundamentally seeks to maintain power and hierarchy (especially related to gender), and individuals who challenge this hierarchy are disproportionately targeted with sexual harassment. I found that LGBTQ employees, doctors with multiple marginalized identities, and individuals with gender nontraditional careers––female doctors and male nurses––experienced more sexual harassment than their counterparts. As my dissertation clearly and powerfully illustrates, we cannot address sexual harassment without considering organizational and social factors.PhDPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155160/1/stbrass_1.pd