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Themes And Perceptions Of Written Sexually Harassing Messages And Their Link To Distress

University of Minnesota

This study examined how sexually harassing messages harm. Based on theories of sexual harassment and message effects, message contents and perceptions of message features were related to indices of distress. Sixty-six messages were collected and then sorted to acquire similarity data, which was then cluster analyzed to derive content themes. A separate set of participants were exposed to randomized sequences of the messages in written form to provide their perceptions of each and predict the extent to which each would activate affects and elicit psychosomatic symptoms. One-way ANOVA results across the content themes showed that the hostile/aggressive category produced the highest levels of distress. In addition, regression results showed that message perceptions accounted for significant amounts of variance in the affects and psychosomatic symptoms measures. Results are discussed in terms of advancing work on message effects through inclusion of sets of message perceptions.

Key Words: distress • message characteristics • message effects • sexual harassment

Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 1, 8-28 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X02250052


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