Elsevier

Evolution and Human Behavior

Volume 33, Issue 5, September 2012, Pages 479-490
Evolution and Human Behavior

Original Article
Sociosexuality as predictor of sexual harassment and coercion in female and male high school students,☆☆,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.01.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Sexual harassment and coercion have mainly been considered from a sex difference perspective. While traditional social science theories have explained harassment as male dominance of females, the evolutionary perspective has suggested that sex differences in the desire for sex are a better explanation. This study attempts to address individual differences associated with harassment from an evolutionary perspective. Considering previous research that has found links between sociosexual orientation inventory (SOI) and harassment, we consider whether this association can be replicated in a large, representative sample of high school students (N=1199) from a highly egalitarian culture. Expanding the previous studies which mainly focused on male perpetrators and female victims, we also examine females and males as both perpetrators and as victims. We believe that unrestricted sociosexuality motivates people to test whether others are interested in short-term sexual relations in ways that sometimes might be defined as harassment. Furthermore, unrestricted individuals signal their sociosexual orientation, and while they do not desire all individuals that react to these signals with sexual advances, they attract much more sexual advances than individuals with restricted sociosexual orientations, especially from other unrestricted members of the opposite sex. This more or less unconscious signaling thus makes them exploitable, i.e., harassable. We find that SOI is a predictor for sexual harassment and coercion among high school students. The paper concludes that, as expected, unrestricted sociosexuality predicts being both a perpetrator and a victim of both same-sex and opposite-sex harassment.

Introduction

Sexual harassment at work represents a considerable problem in the management of organizations (UN, 2006). Early studies portrayed the traditional view of male perpetrators and adverse consequences for female victims (Fitzgerald, 1993). The feminist perspective has focused on men's need for power as the root cause of conflict between the sexes, seeing sexual harassment as a tool of patriarchy (Browne, 2006, Studd, 1996). Sexual harassment is linked to the need to dominate women accompanied by hostile attitudes (including condoning forced sex) and men's use of their organizational power to oppress their female subordinates (Smith and Konik, 2011, Tangri et al., 1982). Evolutionary psychology (EP) presents an alternative perspective claiming that sex is the driving force in sexual harassment—not males' need for power over women (Buss, 1996, Vandermassen, 2011). We support Vandermassen's (2011) perspective that feminism and EP may mutually inform each other, but one needs to treat both approaches as testable scientific theories (Buss & Schmitt, 2011). As such, the contemporary discussion in the journal Sex Roles (Smith & Konik, 2011) may reflect a watershed in the debate between these two perspectives, resulting in less polemic and more empirical testing (although see Liesen, 2011).

Sexual harassment is defined as unwanted sexually oriented behavior such as offensive sexual attention or hostile behaviors that focus on gender (Fitzgerald et al., 2001, Studd, 1996). It is worth noting that “unwanted” and “offensive” are from the perspective of the person experiencing the harassment. Similar acts from more attractive persons might not be considered harassment, but rather be perceived as flirtatious (Browne, 2006). Sexual harassment covers various acts ranging from sexual comments (obscene language and jokes) and spreading rumors, through inappropriate sexual advances to showing pictures of nudity and sex. Sexual coercion is the use of physical force to obtain sex.

Most research on sexual harassment, conducted within the hierarchical organizational context, has studied adult male perpetrators and female targets. However, sexual harassment is common among high school girls and also among boys (American Association of University Women, 2001, Bendixen and Kennair, 2008, Witkowska, 2005). Studies report 12-month prevalence rates in the 40%–50% range for sexist jokes, degrading and obscene sexual comments, and homophobic insults. Nearly one in four high school students reported the spreading of sexual rumors, being shown pictures of nudity, and being asked for sexual favors. Apart from homophobic insults, more girls than boys reported harassment. Coercion is much less common but is still reported by a significant proportion of students (Bendixen & Kennair, 2008).

Several findings support the sexual motives hypothesis advanced by EP (Studd, 1996). The evidence is particularly strong that victims of sexual harassment are not random women. They are disproportionally young, single, and employed as low-level office workers, waitresses, or cooks in the service sector (Browne, 2006, Studd, 1996). From a male perspective, gaining sexual access to a young and single woman would, potentially, bring greater reproductive benefits than sexual access to an older married woman.

Reliable patterns of sexual harassment and coercion may be predicted by EP (Buss & Kenrick, 1998). Over evolutionary time, the use of coercive means to gain sexual access to unconsenting women increased the reproductive fitness for males but not for females. Differences in evolved sexual strategies (Buss and Schmitt, 1993, Trivers, 1972) and evolved mental mechanisms between the sexes explain why women perceive more situations as sexual harassment or why more men are perpetrators of sexual harassment (Studd & Gattiker, 1991), why more males overperceive sexual intent from the opposite sex (Haselton, 2003), or why the same behavior by different men is perceived differently by women (Sheets & Braver, 1999).

Evolved sex differences have been far more subject to investigation than individual differences, while there are greater behavioral differences within the same sex than between the sexes (Simpson & Gangestad, 1991). Currently, there is growing interest in evolved individual differences and explanations of within-sex differences (Buss & Hawley, 2010).

This paper addresses whether there are evolved within-sex differences that predict sexual harassment and coercion of others and predictors of being harassed or coerced. Early findings (Bendixen & Kennair, 2008) suggest that there is a large overlap between those who harass others and those who are targets of harassment. The etiology of this is not understood, and it remains open to question whether harassing others increases the risk of being harassed (or vice versa) or whether harassing others and being a target of harassment share common individually differing antecedents. Who is harassed, and how are they identified as exploitable by harassers?

Buss and Duntley (2008) suggest that there are different types of exploitation—and there will be different markers that suggest whether or not one is prone to being exploited in a specific area. Such areas of vulnerability are, therefore, person and context specific. Evolved mental mechanisms will be specifically orientated toward perceiving such signs of exploitability. For example, Sakaguchi and Hasegawa (2006) found that Japanese males used awkward gait as a cue to vulnerability for inappropriate touching. Moreover, the male subjects' judgments were able to predict real-life sexual harassment, as reported by the female walkers. Exploitability is thus a specific quality of an individual that conveys to potential exploiters the following information (Buss & Duntley, 2008).

Sakaguchi and Hasegawa (2007) found that unexpected sexual attention was predicted by the targets' unrestricted sociosexuality as measured by Simpson and Gangestad's (1991) sociosexual orientation inventory (SOI; a stable individual behavioral and attitudinal characteristic that predicts sexual behavior across many different situations). Inappropriate touching of body parts was, however, not predicted by SOI. Hence, high-SOI persons are more subject to harassment, but not necessarily to coercion in this study.

Individual differences in SOI are discernible to observers: SOI may be estimated through visual cues such as facial features and body language (Boothroyd et al., 2008, Gangestad et al., 1992, Sakaguchi and Hasegawa, 2007), and high-SOI females are rated to be more attractive than low-SOI females. In the light of Sexual Strategies Theory (Buss & Schmitt, 1993), the major sex difference in SOI (Schmitt, 2005) is due to males being more open to short-term relations (Clark and Hatfield, 1989, Kennair et al., 2009), while females consider sexual relations more from a long-term perspective (Campbell, 2008, Haselton and Buss, 2001, Surbey and Conohan, 2000).

Individuals with high SOI scores thus seem to signal their greater interest in short-term sexual affairs. These signals are perceived by others (Sakaguchi & Hasegawa, 2007). Compared to individuals with a restricted sociosexuality, they will, therefore, attract more sexual attention—not least from other unrestricted individuals of the opposite sex.

If we compared two females—one with an unrestricted sociosexuality and one with lower SOI scores—in a social setting, we might find the following: unrestricted sociosexuality elicits much more sexual solicitations. If the numbers of solicitations were similar, the female with the lower SOI scores would find more of these harassing, as fewer of the attempts to interest her in having casual sex would be desirable. But the total number of advances is expected to be significantly higher due to the female with higher SOI scores signaling availability, and not all of these are welcome; unrestricted females will not find all males attractive. This may add up to a higher total number of experienced harassing advances. In addition, intrasexual competition would put high-SOI subjects at a higher risk of being subject to insults, slander, rumors, and other forms of derogation (Schmitt & Buss, 1996). High-SOI subjects are expected to report more sexual harassment because they are the object of both unwanted sexual advances from members of the opposite sex as well as derogation from same-sex competitors. We suggest that the perpetrators might perceive their victim's unrestricted sociosexuality as a cue to exploitability; high-SOI subjects will signal harassability. High-SOI individuals are probably not aware of the effects of advertising their unrestricted sociosexuality to both desirable and undesirable potential sexual partners. It is the increased amount of undesirable partners that increases the high-SOI individuals' experience of harassability. While experiencing more harassment, signaling high SOI also increases the number of desirable sexual encounters.

Haselton (2003) found that unrestricted sociosexuality was positively associated with the total number of misperceptions of sexual intention. Misperception and biased communication between the sexes might increase the level of perceived sexual harassment in society. Yost and Zurbriggen (2006) found that SOI predicted coercion. In their limited sample of adults, they also noted that females with high SOI scores had more fantasies about sexually dominating others. We posit that behavior described as sexual harassment is primarily behavior that intends to investigate whether the initial perception of an unrestricted sociosexuality is correct, and whether “hooking up” or other short-term sexual relations are possible. Thus, sexually laden communication that signals interest in physical aspects of sex and sexual surgency, rather than love and commitment, is the hallmark of these interactions. Individuals with a restricted sociosexuality will receive much less undesirable attention—due to not advertising an interest in casual sex and signaling exploitability (behavior that increases the number of undesired sexual advances) to the same degree.

If the intention is to dominate or suppress, a perpetrator of sexual harassment ought to target individuals with restricted sociosexuality—as those individuals would be most upset by the behavior. We believe that the main intention is to solicit sex, and thus targeting individuals that advertise their unrestricted sociosexuality is the most effective strategy. Consequently, higher SOI scores will predict an increased likelihood of being harassed, despite a greater interest in receiving sexual attention from attractive partners. Furthermore, sexually aggressive and harassing behavior, understood as attempts to procure casual sex rather than a romantic relationship, is also predicted by increased SOI scores.

In this study, the association between SOI and sexual harassment and coercion is examined using a large sample of gender egalitarian high school students in the context of more traditional social science variables. Exposure to pornography, coercive sexual attitudes, and sexist attitudes are all consistently found to correlate with self-reported coercion (Begany and Milburn, 2002, Glick and Fiske, 1996, Malamuth et al., 2000, Yost and Zurbriggen, 2006). For this reason, measures of porn exposure (type and frequency) as well as attitudes toward coercion (rape myths) and blatant, hostile sexism are included in our analysis. In addition, the analyses are extended to measures of being sexually harassed and coerced, as the prior literature on this particular issue is scarce.

  • 1.

    Based on Sakaguchi and Hasegawa's (2007) findings, we would expect that sociosexuality, as measured by SOI, is positively associated with self-reports of being sexually harassed among female respondents. Despite Sakaguchi & Hasegawa's finding that unrestricted sociosexuality did not predict touching, we expect theoretically that unrestricted females will signal their sociosexuality in such a manner that will also attract more coercion.

  • 2.

    Based on Yost and Zurbriggen's (2006) findings, we would expect that sociosexuality is positively associated with perpetration of sexual harassment and coercion among male respondents.

  • 3.

    We expect that the effect of SOI outlasts competing variables such as exposure to pornography, coercive sexual attitudes (rape myths), and sexism.

Studies on female sexual harassers and coercers are scarce. This also holds true for male targets of these behaviors. We included female perpetrators as well as male targets, which enabled us to study how sociosexuality relates to both sexual harassment and coercion in male and female respondents as perpetrators and victims. The expectation of this exploratory perspective is that SOI also predicts male victims and female perpetrators. Our design also allows for the examination of SOI as a predictor of same-sex and opposite-sex sexual harassment.

The competing social science predictions would suggest that if male dominance is the primary motivation for harassment, there should be very limited female harassment of males and same-sex harassment. In addition, competing predictions would suggest that other social factors such as coercive and sexist attitudes and porn exposure would outweigh the importance of SOI. The third alternative is Malamuth's (1996) confluence model, where both hostile masculinity and sexual promiscuity predict male coercion. This model combines feminist and evolutionary positions.

Section snippets

Design and subjects

A cross-sectional study covering students enrolled in nine high schools was carried out in Central Norway. In total, 1610 (49.3% of 3260 eligible for study) students responded to a web-based questionnaire. Ages ranged between 16 and 26 (modal age 17 years). An age-homogeneous sample was created including only those aged 16 to 18 years (95% of the sample). Approximately 5% of the students were self-nominated non-Norwegians. Parents' level of education and employment status were used as

Descriptives

Males reported markedly more lenient attitudes toward unrestricted sex than females (Table 1), which held true across all attitude items. Small sex differences were evident for the behavior variables measuring the number of different sex partners reported in the past year. This was due to a larger proportion of females (63.4%) than males (47.7%) reporting having at least one sex partner during the past year. The average number of different partners in the past year among those who reported

Discussion

In summary, SOI (especially the behavioral component) proved to be consistently associated with being sexually harassed in female respondents, in strong support of our first prediction. In addition, the behavioral component of SOI significantly predicted same-sex and opposite-sex harassment. Expanding earlier findings (Sakaguchi & Hasegawa, 2007), SOI (behavior) was found to be consistently associated in both harassed and harassing female respondents. SOI (behavior) and Porn Exposure predicted

References (50)

  • D.M. Buss et al.

    Evolutionary social psychology

  • D.M. Buss et al.

    Sexual strategies theory: an evolutionary perspective on human mating

    Psychological Review

    (1993)
  • D.M. Buss et al.

    Evolutionary psychology and feminism

    Sex Roles

    (2011)
  • A. Campbell

    Female competition: causes, constraints, content, and context

    The Journal of Sex Research

    (2004)
  • A. Campbell

    The morning after the night before: affective reactions to one-night stands among mated and unmated women and men

    Human Nature

    (2008)
  • R.D. Clark et al.

    Gender differences in receptivity to sexual offers

    Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality

    (1989)
  • J. Cohen

    Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences

    (1988)
  • A.H. Eagly et al.

    The origins of sex differences in human behavior

    American Psychologist

    (1999)
  • B. Ekehammar et al.

    Development and validation of Swedish classical and modern sexism scales

    Scandinavian Journal of Psychology

    (2000)
  • L.F. Fitzgerald

    Sexual harassment: violence against women in the workplace

    American Psychologist

    (1993)
  • L.F. Fitzgerald et al.

    Sexual harassment

  • L.F. Fitzgerald et al.

    Measuring sexual harassment: theoretical and psychometric advances

    Basic and Applied Social Psychology

    (1995)
  • S.W. Gangestad et al.

    Differential accuracy in person perception across traits: examination of a functional hypothesis

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1992)
  • P. Glick et al.

    The ambivalence sexism inventory: differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

    (1996)
  • Cited by (0)

    Preliminary analyses of some of the data reported in this paper were presented at HBES, June 2008, Kyoto.

    ☆☆

    Thanks to two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

    Data collection was supported by a grant from Sør-Trøndelag County Authority to M.B. and L.E.O.K.

    View full text