Psychological sequelae of sexual harassment in academia

Estimates of the occurrence of sexual harassment on college campuses range from 30 to 70 percent of undergraduate women per year. Anecdotal evidence and prevailing theory suggest that psychological manifestations of sexual harassment may be similar to symptoms experienced by victims of other sexual traumas such as rape and incest. Eighty-seven male and female participants filled out self-report measures of instances of sexual harassment, basic beliefs, psychological distress, PTSD symptoms, and coping strategies. Participants watched videotapes depicting sexual harassment, emotional arousal, and a neutral interaction while their heart rate and skin temperature were monitored and were screened for PTSD diagnoses. Results revealed that students who had been sexually harassed in an academic setting harbored more negative basic beliefs and evidenced more general psychopathology than those who had not been harassed, regardless of their perception of the experience as harassment. The measure of sexual harassment (where scores increase as experience of sexual harassment increases) was positively correlated with PTSD symptoms. Subjects who perceived themselves to have been harassed had more "reexperiencing" PTSD symptoms than those who had experienced similar events but did not identify them as harassment. Subjects who perceived themselves to have been harassed were more likely to have met criteria for PTSD at some point than those who have never been harassed. Subjects' patterns of physiological reactivity to the different videotapes did not differ, regardless of harassment status. Among subjects who had been sexually harassed, approach coping was not significantly related to general psychopathology or PTSD symptoms, while avoidance coping was associated with greater symptomatology. Approach coping was positively related to favorableness of basic beliefs while avoidance coping was related to less favorable basic beliefs. In sum, victims of academic sexual harassment appear to harbor more negative basic beliefs and suffer from more psychological distress than students who have not been sexually harassed. These results suggest that the experience of academic sexual harassment may be psychologically similar to other sexual traumas.