Gender prototypicality shapes self-perceptions of and bystander responses to women's sexual harassment

Abstract

Nonprototypical women (e.g., masculine, transgender, Black, etc.) are especially vulnerable to sexual harassment but face greater credibility discounts relative to prototypical women (e.g., feminine, cisgender, White, etc.). In three parts and across thirteen pre-registered studies (total N = 4,922), we examine the consequences of this prototype bias for women's self-perceptions (Part 1) of and bystander responses (Parts 2 and 3) to their sexual harassment. We advance the literature on the prototype bias by testing these novel outcomes and manipulating gender prototypicality in different ways within and across studies. In Part 1, six studies show that wearing more masculine vs. feminine clothing, but not possessing more masculine vs. feminine traits, leads women to perceive the same experiences as less sexually harassing. In Part 2, a meta-analysis across four experiments shows that bystanders intervene less readily for women who possess more stereotypically masculine vs. feminine traits and are transgender vs. cisgender. In Part 3, unexpectedly, Black vs. White women receive similar support from bystanders across three experiments, suggesting the prototype bias may not extend to this form of between-group prototypicality. Taken together, this work highlights the pervasiveness and limits of the prototype bias in how women perceive their own sexual harassment and bystanders respond to women's sexual harassment.