Dateline: September, 2007, Issue 3
**previous research updates can be found in the Jury Research Kollectionn at www.kkcomcon.com
How does litigants' gender affect jury verdicts in sexual harassment cases?
Sexual harassment knows no gender. Men can harass women or other men, and women can also harass men or other women.
Wayne and colleagues (2001) explored how jurors perceive cross-sex and same-sex harassment for both males and females accused of harassment. Over 400 jurors made decisions in a hostile work environment case. Each juror was given one of four variations of this case. Two variations alleged cross-sex harassment (male on female, or female on male), while the other two variations alleged same-sex harassment (male on male, female on female).
The researchers report three important conclusions:
(1) Jurors are more likely to decide against women claimed to be harassing men than men claimed to be harassing women.
(2) Jurors are more likely to decide against alleged harassers in same-gender cases than in cross-gender cases.
(3) The gender of a juror matters, but only in cross-gender cases. Regardless whether men or women are accused of harassment, female jurors are more likely to decide against an alleged harasser than male jurors in cross-gender cases.
The gender of litigants and jurors affects verdicts in sexual harassment cases.
Source: Wayne, J. H., Riordan, C. M. & Thomas, K. M. (2001). Is all sexual harassment the same? Mock jurors decisions in same- and cross-gender cases. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, pp. 179-187.
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