Can Legal Interventions Change Beliefs? The Effect of Exposure to Sexual Harassment Policy on Men’s Gender Beliefs

harassment is a form of sex-based discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, more than 90% of large organizations have adopted a sexual harassment policy (Dobbin and Kelly 2007). With the Supreme Court holding that employers can mitigate liability by providing evidence of sexual harassment procedures (Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998), organizations have increasingly protected themselves from lawsuits by training employees and employers on the harassment policies and their implications for appropriate behavior in the workplace. While organizations may enforce sexual harassment policies in large part to avoid legal liability (Dobbin and Kelly 2007), a primary function of equal employment opportunity laws such as Title VII is to promote equality. While research indicates that policy training and enforcement has reduced the incidence of sexual harassment in the workplace (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board 1995), whether such regulation can effectively promote gender equality between men and women as status peers remains untested. Likewise, while past studies have examined people’s attitudes and reactions toward sexual harassment policy (U.S. Merit Social Psychology Quarterly 2007, Vol. 70, No. 4, 480–494