Ignoring sexism increases women’s tolerance of sexual harassment

Gender Prototypes Hinder Bystander Intervention in Women's Sexual Harassment

Bystander intervention is a powerful response to sexual harassment that reduces victims' burden to respond. However, gender prototypes depicting sexual harassment victims as prototypical women (i.e., stereotypically feminine) may hinder intervention when harassment targets women who deviate from this prototype. Across four preregistered experiments (N = 1,270 Americans), we test whether bystanders intervene less readily in nonprototypical (vs. prototypical) women's sexual harassment. Participants observed a man manager ask a series of increasingly sexually harassing job interview questions toward either a gender prototypical or nonprototypical woman by traits (Studies 1-3) or gender identity (Study 4). Participants were instructed to intervene to stop the interview if/when they judged the questions as inappropriate. A meta-analysis revealed participants had a greater threshold for intervention when harassment targeted a nonprototypical (vs. prototypical) woman-a small but meaningful effect. Efforts to foster bystander intervention in sexual harassment would benefit by recognizing this neglect of nonprototypical women.

The Effects of Humor in Clinical Settings on Medical Trainees and the Implications for Medical Educators: A Scoping Review

Background

Clinical settings represent the site of patient care and clinical training for medical students and residents. Both processes involve social interaction, and humor is a fundamental component of social interaction that remains underexplored in medical education. This study investigated the impact of humor on medical trainees in the context of the clinical learning environment and examined the implications for medical educators.

Methods

Following scoping review methodology, the authors systematically searched six databases and Google Scholar in February 2021 and March 2022. Articles were screened and selected according to inclusion/exclusion criteria, and findings from included articles were synthesized using procedures of metasynthesis.

Results

Fifteen articles met inclusion criteria. Six themes emerged relating to the functions and effects of humor in clinical training settings: (1) managing emotions; (2) demarcating insider vs outsider status; (3) facilitating camaraderie; (4) ensuring conformity; (5) negotiating power differentials; and (6) fostering discrimination.

Conclusions

The use of humor by medical educators plays an integral role in trainees' everyday experiences. Positive humor helps with coping and communication, while negative humor serves as an indirect medium for communicating ridicule and prejudice. Further research drawing on social psychology theories may identify ways to reduce effects of negative humor and promote well-being and diversity in medical education.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-023-01769-0.

Specialty Gender Composition and Prevalence of Physician Harassment

Background: Women physicians remain a minority in most medical specialties and are at higher risk of workplace harassment than men. This research examines the relationship between a medical specialty's gender composition and physicians' workplace harassment experience. Materials and Methods: We used the Association of American Medical Colleges' National Sample Survey of Physicians 2019 (n = 6000). Participants self-reported harassment experiences in the 12 months preceding the survey, including threats of physical harm, physical harm, offensive and sexist remarks, and unwanted sexual advances from patients and coworkers. We used data from the American Medical Association to determine medical specialties' gender composition. We used multiple logistic regression to assess the relationship between harassment experiences and specialty gender composition. Results: Women and men physicians reported threats and harm at similar rates. However, women reported offensive, sexist remarks and unwanted sexual advances more frequently. We found greater representation of women within a specialty is associated with a lower prevalence of harassment experienced by men and women physicians (e.g., threats of physical harm, odds ratio [OR] = 0.973 [women] and 0.984 [men], and unwanted sexual advances, OR = 0.976 [women] and 0.981 [men]). Also, as women's representation in a specialty increases, the gender gap in experiences of most types of harassment decreases. Conclusions: Greater representation of women within a medical specialty is associated with a safer environment for both men and women physicians and narrower gender gaps in harassment experience. Our findings support efforts to increase gender diversity across the specialties and illuminate the dire need for antiharassment solutions in specialties with low women's representation.

Endorsing negative intergroup attitudes to justify failure to confront prejudice

While most people believe they would speak up against prejudice, many fail to do so. We identify a harmful consequence of such inaction through examining its impact on bystanders’ own prejudice. Across four studies in two countries ( N = 1,003) using a behavioral paradigm and experimental pretest–posttest design, participants witnessed prejudice and discrimination against an outgroup minority (Jewish/Roma in Hungary, Muslim/Latinx in US). Drawing on self-justification theories, we predicted and found across Studies 1–3 that those who had an opportunity but did not confront, endorsed more negative intergroup attitudes following the incident both compared to their own prior attitudes and to control groups—that is, those who witnessed the same prejudice but had no opportunity to confront and those who did not to confront different (nonintergroup) prejudice. In Study 4, the proposed effect occurred only among those who initially valued confronting. We suggest that failure to speak up amplifies prejudice in society.

Contributions to reducing online gender harassment: Social re-norming and appealing to empathy as tried-and-failed techniques

Inspired by similar methods shown to be effective in reducing online racist harassment, we designed two tweets aimed at reducing online gender harassment. Our interventions were based on the principles of social re-norming and appealing to harassers’ empathy. In a sample of 666 Twitter users engaging in sexist or misogynist tweeting, we found that our intervention tweets did not reduce the number of sexist slurs or sexist users, either 7 days or 31 days after being sent. Our attempts also affected neither the valence nor the arousal of subsequent tweets posted by our sample of Twitter users. We discuss the conceptual, methodological, and ethical challenges associated with activist research aimed at reducing online gender harassment and discuss some of the implications of our attempts to do so.