Women's definition of 'harassment' in online dating depends on the attractiveness of the man
A simulation of online dating was performed with fictional male profiles of varying attractiveness and social status. 128 female college students from a small northeastern public university participated to interact with these fictional male profiles. The male profiles then sent the female participants messages of increasing harassment. Researchers assessed how much harassment the women were willing to tolerate.
Results very clearly indicated that the strongest predictor of women's tolerance for "online harassment" was the attractiveness and social status of the "harasser" (ie. her interest in dating him).
Quotes:
- Participants' self reported likelihood to date a bogus male dating candidate was predictive of tolerance for sexual harassment.
- As a profile’s likelihood to date rating increased, so did the number of sexually harassing responses that participants were willing to tolerate.
- We found that participants exposed to a physically attractive bogus candidate were willing to receive more sexually harassing responses from the bogus candidate, as were participants exposed to a high status bogus candidate.
- Physically attractive individuals are perceived as less sexually harassing than unattractive individuals (Hendrix, Rueb, & Steel,1998).
- Women also reported being least upset when they imagined being harassed by a man of high occupational status (e.g., premedical student, graduate student, successful rock star) and most upset when being harassed by a man of low occupational status (e.g., construction worker, garbage collector, cleaning men, gas station attendant) (Buss, 1994).
References:
- Angelone DJ, Mitchell D, Carola K. 2009. Tolerance of sexual harassment: a laboratory paradigm. Arch Sex Behav. 38(6): 949-58. [Abstract] [FullText]
The attractiveness of a male 'harasser' determines if the experience is enjoyable or traumatic
Fairchild (2010) conducted an online survey on perceptions of sexual harassment incidents of (N = 1,277) relatively young (mean age 28.11) women. The women were given a series of questions from a modified version of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ) (e.g.,"Have you ever experienced unwanted sexual attention or interaction from a stranger?"; "Have you ever experienced catcalls, whistles, or stares from a stranger?") to measure if and/or how often they had been the recipient of such harassing behaviors.
The participants were then presented with a list of 17 contextual factors including (attractiveness, time of day, race, and location) and asked to select which of the features would make a experience of harassment by a stranger more frightening, which would make the experience more enjoyable, and which would make them more likely to react verbally. It was found that the primary factors that determined how enjoyable or traumatic women found the experience to be were:
- Physical Attractiveness: More attractive men most significantly increased women's enjoyment of the 'harassment'.
- Age: Similar or younger age in relation to the participant increased women's enjoyment of the 'harassment'.
- Race: Different race of man made women more likely to rate it as traumatic.
Quotes:
- Similar behaviors from an attractive and unattractive man are viewed differently with the attractive man receiving more leeway in the potentially harassing behavior.
- Likewise, there is a contrast between younger harasser (18% responded more enjoyable) and older harasser (33% responded more frightening); this suggests that age may be an important contextual factor, particularly for determining if a situation is threatening enough to induce fear.
- It can only be assumed that the women (46% of participants) feel that stranger harassment is an unpleasant experience that cannot be improved. However, it is equally likely that these women (or some of them) find the experience highly enjoyable and such enjoyment cannot be increased.
References:
- Fairchild K. 2010. Context Effects on Women's Perceptions of Sexual Harassment. Sexuality & Culture. 14:19. [FullText]