Is That Really Sexual Harassment? The Effect of a Victim's Sexual Orientation on How People View a Sexual Harassment Claim.

In three experiments and a meta-analysis, the present research examined how the sexual orientation of a victim affected the perceived legitimacy of sexual harassment claims. Working from prototype theory, the researchers hypothesized that because lesbian women deviate from the prototype of a sexual harassment victim, people would be less likely to perceive sexual harassment claims as legitimate when the victim was a lesbian woman as compared to a heterosexual woman. Although Experiment 1 yielded results congruent with the hypothesis, Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 did not. A meta-analysis conducted to assess effects of sexual orientation across all studies was not significant ( g  = -.06, z  = -1.20, p  = .23). The impact of victim prototypicality on perceptions of sexual harassment claims is discussed.