Title: Promoting Respect as a Solution to Workplace Sexual Harassment

Abstract: Despite, organizational policies aimed at sexual harassment prevention, harassing behaviors remain pervasive at work. Scholars have noted that anti-harassment policies may not be effective because they often focus heavily on unwanted sexual pursuit and sexual coercion and do little to tackle the broader climate of hostility and disrespect that sets the stage for sexual harassment. Thus, the present study examines whether anti-harassment efforts are more effective at reducing both sexual and hostile forms of harassment, for men and women, if expanded to emphasize positive, prosocial norms of respect. In a large military sample, we tested whether leader respect promotion uniquely predicted sexual advance harassment and gender harassment. In addition, we examined whether leader respect promotion moderates the relationship between leader harassment prevention behaviors (a previously established predictor) and the frequency of sexual advance and gender harassment. We found that leader respect promotion negatively predicted gender harassment and was not related to sexual advance harassment, for both men and women. In addition, leader respect promotion moderated the relationship between harassment prevention behaviors and gender harassment and sexual advance harassment (except for men) such that harassment was lowest when leaders promoted respect and prevented harassment. These results suggest that while traditional harassment prevention efforts remain important for deterring sexual harassment, a respectful climate is also an effective tool against sexual harassment.