Citation

Ziano I, Polman E. Person. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/01461672241235388

PMID

38491913

Abstract

What do people think of when they think of workplace harassment? In 13 pre-registered studies with French, British, and U.S. American adult participants (N = 3,892), we conducted a multi-method investigation into people's social prototypes of victims of workplace harassment. We found people imagined such victims in physically, socially, psychologically, and economically different ways compared with non-victims: for example, as less attractive, more introverted, and paid less. In addition, we found ambiguous harassment leveled against a prototypical (vs. non-prototypical) victim was more likely to be classified as harassment, and perceived to cause the victim more psychological pain. As such, both lay-people and professionals wanted to punish harassers of victims who "fit the prototype" more. Notably, providing people with instructions to ignore a victim's personal description and instead assess the harassment behavior did not reduce the prototype effect.

Language: en

Keywords

punishment; social prototype; stereotyping; workplace harassment