%0 Journal Article
%T Prototypes of victims of workplace harassment
%J Personality and social psychology bulletin
%D 2024
%A Ziano, Ignazio
%A Polman, Evan
%V ePub
%N ePub
%P ePub-ePub
%X 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.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>
%G en
%I SAGE Publishing
%@ 0146-1672
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/01461672241235388