Gender differences in the interpretation of social-sexual behavior: A cross-cultural perspective on sexual harassment

Numerous studies have found gender differences in judgments about sexual harassment. However, most previous research has been conducted on U.S. samples only. The present research examines gender differences in judgments about sexual harassment from a cross-cultural perspective. College students from Australia, Brazil, Germany, and the United States were asked to judge the degree to which a specific interaction between a student and a professor described in varying hypothetical scenarios might be considered sexual harassing and to provide a brief definition of sexual harassment. In some conditions, U.S. women judged specific interactions as more harassing than U.S. men. However, this pattern did not emerge in student samples from other countries. No within-culture gender differences in students' definitions of sexual harassment were obtained, although the results revealed considerable cross-cultural differences. The relevance of these findings for understanding the "reasonable woman" standard in legal proceedings is discussed.