The Role of Trainer Characteristics in Intern Sexual Harassment Training Effectiveness
Year: 2020
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Sexual harassment has received considerable attention in the United States over the last several years, as evidenced by the #MeToo movement. During this time, it has become evident that sexual harassment is an enduring issue across industries, posing serious problems for both employees and employers. As a result, both academics and practitioners have focused on ways to prevent it, with sexual harassment training emerging as popular solution. While the effects of training characteristics on sexual harassment training effectiveness have been discussed in both the academic and practitioner literatures, one critical training factor, trainer characteristics, which is likely to influence training outcomes, has received surprisingly limited attention. To address this, we focus on two training formats and investigate how two critical and organizationally controllable trainer characteristics, trainer biological sex and area of expertise, interact to influence training outcomes, and consider the mediating mechanism of perceived trainer integrity. This is done using sexual harassment training for student interns administered in a laboratory setting. Our findings show that trainers with gender-incongruent expertise (e.g., female employment lawyers or male HR professionals) are penalized through trainees’ lowered perceptions of trainer integrity, which in turn decrease sexual harassment training effectiveness, when training is text-based. This effect is neutralized in video-based training, however. Implications of these findings, for both academics and practitioners, are discussed.
Institutions: University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, University of Rhode Island
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3045665771