Psychology 162
Dr. Ebbesen
You can read about victimization studies published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm by clicking on the http address. You can read about victimology concepts and research here.
Many, though not all, criminal acts are directed against victims. Are some people more likely to be victims than others? That is, do some people, because of their actions, put themselves in situations that increase the odds that they will be victimized? At some level, this has to be true. We know that certain crimes are much more likely to occur in certain geographical areas. We also know that some people choose (are forced??) to live in those areas. As a result, they are more at risk than people who live in other areas. If some people, through their behavior, are more likely to be victimized (raped, beaten, robbed, etc.) than others, then does it make sense to include the nature of the victim as one of the causes of crime? After all, if victims didn't behave as they do, then criminals might be less likely to rape, rob, and beat? This is the type of argument that we frequently hear to justify rape. "She dressed sexy all of the time, what did she expect?" We also hear the same type of argument being used by women who are abused by their spouses. They often excuse the beatings they get by saying that they brought it on themselves by picking on the husband or by getting him angry. (See the section on Battered Women.) The same thing is sometimes said about people who leave their valuables unprotected. If someone is stupid enough to leave his keys in his unlocked car, should he share some of the responsibility when the car is stolen? How much of the behavior of criminals is the result of the behavior of victims? Should victims be held partially responsible for the actions of the criminal? (You will read about the concept of "entrapment" later on in the class. Entrapment implies that victim behavior can affect the odds that people will violate the law.) Whatever side you pick, think about why you picked that side? Are there any circumstances that might be an exception to your position?
[By the way, do you think that it makes sense to have laws that attempt to control behavior in situations in which there are no obvious victims? For example, we have laws against gambling, various drugs, suicide, and so on. In these cases, some argue that, other than the person who is engaging in the activity, there is no real victim. Whose family would attend the criminal proceedings rooting for a severe punishment in a case in which someone has been arrested for using drugs? Should we have laws that attempt to protect people from themselves? If so, whom do we punish? For example, if we punish a person who attempts to commit suicide, how are we protecting him or her?]
[Another thought: do you think that the same theories that explain criminal action when there is an obvious victim can explain criminal action for those cases in which there is no obvious victim? Did any of the theories that you read about in Chapter 3 discuss this issue?]
What is your opinion about the abuse excuse? Do you think that criminals can be victims? Do some causes of criminal behavior absolve the criminal of responsibility for his or her actions? If not, do you think that we should treat criminal differently, depending on the cause of their criminal behavior? (This is a key issue. You should think deeply about it.)
Sexual Harassment
How much of the concept of sexual harassment depends on the "perception" of the woman? For example, using the Starr report as evidence, did President Clinton sexually harass Monica Lewinsky? Some would say yes, and others no. Those who would say yes would argue that anytime sexual (by the way, why sexual and not other forms of behavior?[i]) behavior occurs between individuals who hold a superior and subordinate relationship in a workplace, that sexual activity should be considered sexual harassment. It should be considered harassment because it adversely affects the work environment of all people. Other subordinates are placed in a disadvantaged position not because of their skill or work but because of the special relationship between the superior and the one subordinate. There might be a conflict of interest created between the superior and subordinate that does not exist for other subordinates. Of course, others would argue that Lewinsky could not have been sexually harassed because she "came on" to the President. She is the one who made sexual advances towards him. She was never forced to engage in sexual activity that she did not want to and even attempted to engage in some activities that the President apparently turned down.
As your book points out, the courts, the EEOC (what doe this acronym stand for?) have attempted to define sexual harassment in different ways. Notice that the EEOC definition begins with "unwelcome sexual advances". Does this mean a woman who welcomes sexual advances as a means to get promoted, has sex, and then was not promoted has not been sexually harassed? Does including the idea of "unwelcome" in the definition give power to the woman to control the male boss? Can't a woman threaten the boss by saying that she will claim that the sexual activity was unwanted if he doesn't promote her? Can work environments be made hostile and intimidating by a boss's behavior that is not sexual? Can a male boss make a male employee feel intimidated or offended? What if a male boss calls his male subordinate stupid and incompetent? What if the male boss says to his male subordinate, I want you to buy a gift for the boss's wife's birthday? Is there an important difference between these kinds of actions and a boss asking his female subordinate to dress sexier to impress their clientele? Is there a difference between a boss asking his female subordinate to kiss him than asking his male subordinate to shine his shoes? Both are not in the job description. Both make the work environment offensive.
What is your opinion about the subjective approach v. the objective approach that the appellate courts tried to use to define a hostile work environment? What is the "reasonable person standard"? If we use this standard, can we expect males to understand what a reasonable woman might feel? That is, do we need a "reasonable woman" and a "reasonable man" standard? If so, by extension, should we also have a reasonable African-American or a reasonable low-come or a reasonable teenager standard? If fact, what does it mean to say a "reasonable person." Do you agree with the Michigan Supreme Court decision? If we believe that women experience things differently than men, then are our beliefs stereotypic and supportive of paternalism? When is a belief about people in general or about a subgroup of people a stereotype? If 55% of women and 45% of men perceive an act as hostile, is it a stereotype to say that women are more likely to perceive that type of act as hostile than men? If you said yes, then what if the percentage were 75% of women and 30% of men? The same point is made below about rape myths.
It is of some interest to examine the list of characteristics that might influence EEOC decisions about sexual harassment. Some of these are easily related to psychological theory. Others are not, at least not theories about the causes of sexual harassment. For example, what does having documentation to support the charges have to do with the causes of sexual harassment? This is an important and general example. Sometimes psychologists focus on their theories so much that they fail to take into account variables that might be very important in the real world. Most of the time these variable are obvious, practical aspects of the system. Documented evidence is such an example. Whether there is or is not documented evidence for behavior can often outweigh many other social psychological factors in determining outcomes. After all, if there is documented evidence, social evidence (perceptions of witnesses, lying, etc.) becomes less important. Why do you think that one of the factors that predicted EEOC decisions was whether the victim notified management prior to filing charges? I can think of at least two very different reasons. The EEOC might have seen the act of notifying management as an indication of the truthfulness of the victim's claim. Alternatively, because their focus is on the workplace and not the behavior of a single individual, they might have felt that it is easier to hold the entire management team responsible if they had been notified and they did little to prevent such actions from reoccurring.
One view of the harassment area is that harassment law has placed burdens on businesses that they ought not to have to bear. For example, it could be argued that harassment law creates a tension between management and employees because management has to police the sexual habits of its employees. Not only do business have to worry about employee skill and work productivity, they also have to worry about employee theft, employees taking drugs, and employee's sexual habits. Have things gone too far? Should men and women be left to their own devises to control each other's sexual urges? After all, we already have laws on the books regarding rape and forced sexual assault. Do we need additional laws to regulate how men and women flirt and engage in sexual play? (If you want to experience the kind of training that businesses are doing now with regard to sexual harassment, you might take a look at this site. Workplace Answers provides web-based instruction for employees on a number of issues. One of them is sexual harassment. UC requires its employees to take a two-hour long web class that presents examples of interpersonal activities that might occur in the workplace and attempts to teach employees which might be considered harassment under current CA law.)
If we can't agree how to measure sexual harassment, then how can we know what its true incidence is? Your book suggests that a survey indicated that as many as 40% of women claim to have been sexually harassed on the job. What is the meaning of this result? Does this mean that 39% of women have heard a dirty joke and 1% have been threatened with being fired unless they had sex with their bosses? Does it make sense to "lump together" such a wide range of human action into one category of "crime"? When we use the words sexual harassment, how can we be sure that our listeners have the same actions in mind that we do? Psychologists always use used words that describe categories of behavior, e.g., aggression, remembering, helping, deciding, compulsive, abusive, hyperactive, and so on, in their theories. The same issue arises when they use these terms as when the legal system uses them. Unless the terms are clearly defined by accepted measurement procedures, and those who are listening know the measurement procedures, how will the listeners know what the psychologists have in mind? This should tell you something important about interpreting survey data. What, exactly, did the persons being surveyed think that they were being asked about?
[Read a recent opinion piece by John Leo about how recent changes in the amount of attention that the media is giving to "sex scandals" might have an effect on how the legal system defines sexual harassment. When you read this, pay special attention to the idea that Mr. Leo is arguing that for harassment to take place, the person who was harassed had to be harmed, either economically or psychologically. How does this view compare with the "reasonable person" standard or with the view that UCSD takes to sexual harassment? (You can read about the latter in the policy and procedure manual for UCSD. Which view do you prefer? Why? How can we measure whether a woman has been psychologically harmed? Can women report that they have felt harmed when they have not actually suffered [that is, can women lie or feel harm when none actually occurred]? When is a learning environment offensive? Should staring be included in the same category as touching and massaging? Should romance between two consenting individuals be prevented if others find such romance offensive or threatening? If two faculty members fall in love and a third faculty member objects to them getting married because she feels that her relationship in the department will be adversely affected, is this something about which we should have laws?)
Is there a way to detect whether actual harm has occurred? Suppose a measure is developed and it indicates that one out of ten women feel harmed when a given action is performed (say telling a sexually explicit joke). Suppose that one woman brings charges against a man for exactly this action. Do you care that only one out of ten women would be harmed by this action or is it sufficient that just this one woman was harmed? How is the man suppose to know which women might feel harmed and which will not? Does this matter. Should all men be prevented from performing this action just because one out of ten women will feel harm. What if it was one out of 20, 50, 100? Is there a point at which we allow the man to act? Notice that Mr. Leo is also of the opinion, "Not every crude bit of behavior should qualify for litigation." Do you agree with him? Where does UCSD come down on this issue? Should women be allowed to bring court actions against men who do not threaten, who do not make "quid-pro-quo" offers, but who simply behave in gross and crude ways, e.g., tell a dirty joke or make a remark about a woman's body or clothing? If your first thought is no, then what if the women tells the man that she finds his behavior offensive but the man continues to tell dirty jokes in her presence. What if the circumstances are that several men and women are sitting around in a room or standing by the coffee machine and the man tells dirty jokes while looking at other males. Suppose most of the men and a few women laugh but the one woman continues to find the jokes offensive and reports that fact to her and the man's boss. Should the boss be obligated to tell the man to stop telling dirty jokes? How far do you want to law to go in controlling interpersonal behavior that causes neither physical harm nor economic damage to people?]
The US Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear a case concerning a fifth grade girl who was "sexually harassed" by a fifth grade male classmate. According to the girl's mother, the boy had repeatedly touched the girl's breasts, rubbed up against her, and said that he wanted to have sex with her. The mother complained to school officials. When the school did not seem to do anything, the mother went to the local sheriff. The boy eventually pled guilty to sexual battery. The issue the court is planning to decide is whether to hold the school financially libel for the boy's actions. As in the business world, the girl's lawyers are arguing that the school was told about the harassment and did nothing. Therefore, the school is libel. The counter argument rests on the idea that the school cannot possibly be responsible for the behavior of every student-to-student action. Had it been a teacher who had harassed the girl, the situation would have been more similar to a situation in which a boss (someone in power) harasses an employee. The Supreme Court decided in Title IX of the Education Act Amendment of 1972 that a school was responsible for teacher harassment of a student only when a school official with the authority to correct the problem was notified of the problem or was deliberately indifferent to the misconduct. In short, schools might have to police and monitor the relationships among students. (You can read a decision on a more recent case, Faragher v. City of Boca Raton (1997) involving a college student who worked part time as a lifeguard to discover how the court thinks about this issue). Where do you stand on this issue? What kind of behavioral evidence about the harassment would you require the school to have before it stepped in? Would you just accept the girl's word for it? How can we explain the fact that different girls/women might find the same actions on the part of the male more or less harassing? Can you imagine that some girls might find it exciting if a really attractive boy engaged in a sexually provocative manner but would claim that the identical behavior was sexual harassment if performed by an ugly and smelly boy? If so, what kind of policing problems would this create for a school? In other words, is the harm that girls and women might feel dependant on more than the behavior of the male? Would it bother you if the same girl felt differently if an attractive male as opposed to an ugly one performed the identical behavior? Suppose the behavior involved touching and groping?
[There is another general issue here that is not fully discussed in your book and that is the question of what constitutes "free speech" v. harassment. When thinking about this issue you might want to expand it beyond the question of sexual harassment. For example, a recent article in the Jewish World Review, questions whether it is a good idea to punish "hate speech" published in a Faculty newsletter. How should we balance the First Amendment right to free speech and the harms that speech can sometimes cause others? Does the freedom of speech include being able to call someone's body parts ugly or attractive? When you think about this, you should consider what role you want to legal system to play in controlling human behavior. What behaviors should be under the control of the rest of society, e.g., parents, peers, and so on, and what behaviors should we require legal and/or by extension, business and school systems to monitor? Clearly there are many behaviors that you might find obnoxious when you see or hear others do them, e.g., not brushing one's teeth and having bad breath as a result, picking one's nose, smelling one's fingers after touching various body parts, and so on. However, do we really want to have laws against such behaviors? Do you want the police spending time smelling people's breath? In the case of speech, shouldn't the old saying, "sticks and stones might break my bones but names will never harm me," be sufficient?]
(A PBS program on battered women and the men who commit these crimes: http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/)
Read the "myths" listed in your book about battered women. How do we decide whether these really are myths? For example, what does it mean to claim that it is a myth that women provoke the assaults inflicted on them? What if it could be shown that many beatings occur after the women has asked the man a certain question, e.g., about cheating with another women or about money (or any other question that is likely to anger the man). What if this is a common topic of argument and frequently ends in shouting matches, some of which also end in beatings. Would you say that the woman was provoking the male's beatings by asking him "difficult" questions? What is a provocation? Are we back to the reasonable person idea again? Does the woman have to hit, throw something, kick, bite, etc. the man before her behavior would be called a provocation?
Alcohol is associated with battering. It is not present in all instances, but battering is more likely to occur when the male and/or female have been drinking than when they have not been drinking. Does the women bear some responsibility for getting drunk?
In many instances in which battered women have killed their husbands, they
have done so not in the heat of a battering. A beating might have taken place,
but the murder occurs after it is over, often hours or days after. Prosecutors
argue that the self-defense is not a reasonable defense because the woman was
not in immediate danger at the time of the murder. The concept of "learned
helplessness" as some have applied it to these cases suggests that murder
was the only way out for these women because they were helpless to stop the
beatings in any other way. Most women who have been in battering relationships
believe that they would have been killed (according to
[A similar issue about veridicality of beliefs arises when we think about
police officers and how they decide whether to stop and question citizens. For
example, a recent newspaper
article in the San Diego Union-Tribune quotes a white police officer as saying,
"People pay us to be suspicious. Little bells go off with certain things.
I'm probably more suspicious of blacks, just based on experience. There's more
of a possibility of problems than with others." This represents a belief
system. Should we demand that police officers not hold such beliefs because
they are inherently racial or should we allow a police officer to treat
different people differently if the different treatments are based on accurate
beliefs, e.g., beliefs about who is and who is not likely to be engaged in
criminal actions? If you agree with the latter, then how should we decide
whether the police officer's beliefs are veridical? Blacks are
disproportionately arrested and convicted of crimes compared to whites. This is
consistent with the officer's beliefs. However, as a percentage of those who
are arrested, more whites than blacks are arrested and convicted of crimes in
What is the definition of syndrome? Should the law require more than the fact that a psychologist labels something a syndrome? What should the properties of syndrome be? If 51% of women who are battered experience the identical reactions, but the rest experience something completely different, then should the word syndrome be used? Suppose 95% of the women experience one part or aspect in the same manner, but also have many different experiences that do not seem to fall into a clear pattern. Can we call this a syndrome? I am attempting to force you to think about how sometimes when we name something; we believe that the named thing is real. However, names do not make things real. You need to think about the kind of behavioral evidence that would want to see before you were willing to accept the claim that the battered wife syndrome is real.
[Read about an actual recent case of a women who killed her husband and used the battered wife syndrome defense. San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 6, 1998)
Rape
(For an anti-feminist view see: http://www.equityfeminism.com/, for other views see: Feminist.com and http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/studyg/rape.html#top. After looking over these sites, you might attempt to reconcile the fact that some people say rape is never the woman's fault and others claim that women sometimes falsely accuse men of rape. Are these opposing sides talking about the same thing? What is the real source of disagreement?)
How can we decide whether rape myths really are myths? What if some women, some of the time, do mean, "yes," when they say, "no"? When is a belief a myth? "When a woman goes to the home of a man on her first date, it implies that she is willing to have sex," is a myth according to your book. What if 10% of women who do go to a man's home on their first dates do have sex with the man on that first date? What if 50% have sex on that first date? What if 90% have sex on that first date? When is the belief no longer a myth? Does the idea that some beliefs are myths even make sense for a psychologist? Should we just report the percent of couples that have sex on first date after the women agreed to go to the man's apartment and not use the concept of myth at all? Another way of thinking about this issue is: Is the concept of rape myths a political strategy designed to change the way men (and women) behave or is it an empirical concept?
The book discusses different motivations that rapist might have. Ellis describes three categories of theories that attempt to explain rape. Can you think of empirical evidence that we might collect to test these competing theories? Looking at the data from the National Woman's Study about rape, which of the three theories seems most reasonable? Why?
Date rape is interesting because it reflects an interesting fact about male/female interactions; namely, that we are not very good at communicating the level of intimacy with that we are comfortable. Males and females have all sorts of beliefs about the meaning of various behaviors that might occur as a male and a female interact with each other. Can you think about the cues that you use to decide that someone of the opposite gender is or is not interested in becoming more intimate? What do you do to signal that you are interested in greater intimacy? Do we want laws that prescribe how intimate two people can become when the communication patterns are so poorly defined? We do not have "mating rituals" that are as formal and structured as other species, such as birds and fish. However, in some cultures mating practices are much more controlled than they are in our society. For example, marriages are arranged. Elders accompany people on their "dates." Sex before marriage is considered a grave sin and in some societies can be grounds for murder. In other societies, there are sexual rituals that define when a male and a female are allowed to have sex.
Should all of the responsibility for rape fall on the man's shoulders or can the woman's behavior sometimes reduce the responsibility of the man? Why? (For a view of some of the male "conservative" perspective see discussion of Kobe Bryant case, and especially the article in Reason magazine written by a woman.)
The National Women's Study found that in over 2/3rds of the rape cases, women who had been raped reported no physical injuries at all. Some might take this as evidence that the rate of false allegations of rape is high. After all, how can a women claim to have been raped if she didn't put up a struggle? Does your book spend time discussing or reporting the rate of false allegations? It turns out that rape charges are one of the least likely major crime categories to result in convictions. Why? One explanation is that many rape allegations are false. Another is that it is very difficult to prove that a woman did not want to have sex without a witness or with some type of injury to the woman. Without such evidence, how do we know whether it is the woman who is lying (feels guilty, doesn’t want her boyfriend, parents, etc. to know, feels the male lied to her, e.g., said he loved her but then didn’t respond in a loving way after the act, etc.) or the male is lying (he threatened or ignored the woman’s requests to stop). What role does the time between the sexual incident and the women's report that she was raped play in your belief that a rape had occurred. If a woman reports that she had been raped a week earlier and that it took her that long to get over it, are you less likely to believe her than if a woman reports it immediately, all else equal? If you answered "yes," what assumptions about human behavior underlie your belief? What if the woman went to the man’s apartment and engaged in various sexual acts with him (petting, oral sex, etc.) but when he wanted to have intercourse, she said no. Is this still rape? Notice that the set of actions that are required before you are willing to call an act of sexual intercourse rape is arbitrary. In some countries, a woman who puts up a fight to prevent sexual intercourse is the one who is put on trial, sometimes with the death penalty as a possible outcome. Those social systems assume the woman is at fault. What do you believe and why. What part of your beliefs are value-based and what are empirical?
What are rape shield laws (see for example: Rape Shield Law – What you need to know)? Do you believe that we should have rape shield laws? Why or why not?
References
Ellickson, P., Saner, H., & McGuigan, K.A. (1997) Profiles of violent youth: Substance use and other concurrent problems, American Journal of Public Health, 87, 985-991.
Lott, J. R., & Mustard, D. B. (1997) Crime, deterrence, and right-to-carry concealed handguns. Journal of Legal Studies, 26, 1-68.
(P.S. Note the format of the reference. This is APA style. It is the style that you should use in your papers.)
[i] Why is the issue of "harassment" in the work place limited to "sexual harassment"? Suppose I tell a subordinate that unless they wash my dirty socks, I will fire them. How is this different from, "Unless you have sex with me, I will fire you." Do we want to single out sexual activity as something special?