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I lead a study that investigates male empathy levels in response to sexual harassment incidents, with a specific focus on how empathy may vary depending on the gender of the victim.
Credit: Insperity logo; https://www.insperity.com/blog/workplace-sexual-harassment/
THE BACKGROUND
THE BACKGROUND
Sexual Harassment (SH)
Sexual harassment remains a prevalent issue in workplaces. It can have severe impact on a persons physical, psychological, and emotional well-being. Many cases go unreported due to fear of retaliation.
Empathy Training
Empathy training fosters emotional understanding and perspective-taking. Ventura et al. (2020) found that empathy-based interventions can reduce harmful behaviors, such as harassment.
Credit: Can I Feel Your Pain? The Biological and Socio-Cognitive Factors Shaping People's Empathy with Social Robots - Scientific Figure on ResearchGate. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-diagram-visualises-the-concept-of-empathy-discussed-in-detail-above-X-is-in-an_fig1_351733640
THE METHOD
THE METHOD
162 male participants completed the online survey at their convenience using CloudResearch Connect, administered through Qualtrics. Upon beginning the survey, participants provided their consent to participate. Once consent is obtained, participants completed the a questionnaire, consisting of four questions rated on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
Participants were then be randomly assigned to one of three transcript conditions: (1) An empathy story featuring Diana, a female, sharing her story of sexual harassment. (2) An empathy story featuring Brian, a male, sharing his story of sexual harassment. (3) A control story, a company's sexual harassment policy. Following the transcripts, participants completed the Oneness Scale and the Empathic Concern Scale. Subsequently, they filled out the Bystander Interventions Scale, the Illinois Sexual Harassment Myth Acceptance Scale, and demographic questions.
Credit: Mimeo.com
THE RESULTS
THE RESULTS
Empathy, Bystander Intentions (BI), and SH Myth Acceptance did not differ based on the target’s gender.
Participants did express more empathy and BI compared to control condition.
Higher empathy was linked to higher BI and lower acceptance of SH myths.
A mediation effect for empathy on condition with BI, but not SH myths.
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