Individual and objective influences on psychological outcomes of sexual harassment: A preliminary examinationThe Model of Harm proposed by Fitzgerald, Swan, and Magley (1997) proposes three contributors to the psychological, health-related, and organizational outcomes of sexual harassment, each partially mediated by the victim's subjective appraisal of her experience. These are (a) objective or stimulus factors (e.g., frequency, intensity, duration of the harassment), (b) individual factors (e.g., victimization history, personal and professional resources, attributions), and (c) contextual factors (e.g., organizational climate, management norms, gender ratio). This study examined empirically the contribution of individual and objective factors to the negative psychological consequences of sexual harassment. Two studies were conducted. Study 1 examined a group of approximately 1200 women employed in the financial industry and involved in a class action law suit. A series of hierarchical regressions was conducted with two cross validation subsamples to explore the contribution of objective and individual factors to psychological harm; subsequent dominance analysis of the full data set revealed that how bad a woman's experiences were and the attributions a woman makes were the most important of the significant variables for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptomatology and general psychological distress. Study 2 extended the findings from Study 1 to a smaller sample ( n = 85) of women referred for psychological assessment as part of sexual harassment litigation. This study provided a more rigorous assessment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and other psychological symptomatology by employing well-known standardized measures, including the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) and the Symptom Checklist-90-R (SCL-90-R). In this study, previous victimization was included as an additional measure of individual vulnerability. Results paralleled the findings from Study 1 in that severity was the most important factor across all outcomes. Previous victimization contributed significant variance but was nonetheless dominated by objective factors. The findings concerning attributions did not replicate in Study 2, and their theoretical and practical application requires further research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)https://www.upress.umn.edu/test-division/bibliography/2000-2009/2005/collinsworth_individual_2005https://www.upress.umn.edu/logo.png
Linda L Collinsworth
(2005)
Individual and objective influences on psychological outcomes of sexual harassment: A preliminary examination