Considerable research has documented the prevalence of the sexual harassment phenomenon in various social interactive workplace situations. A workplace, by definition, is a social situation where men and women are expected to be in continuous interaction and where human drives, desires, expectations, preferences, and emotions are involved in innocent work-related relations. As such, a workplace might constitute a "greenhouse" for the development of not only mutually accepted personal relationships between the sexes but imposed ones as well. Considerable scientific effort has been provided to the study of the sexual harassment phenomenon in the workplace, as well as to attempt to develop effective ways to cope with this harassment, achieving various degrees of success. It is evident, however, from early studies examining sexual harassment in the workplace (e.g., Farley, 1978; MacKinnon, 1979) and from more recent ones (e.g., Ellis, Barak, & Pinto, 1991; Fitzgerald et al., 1988; United States Merit Systems Protection Board, 1988) that the phenomenon is still widespread.

There is a range of estimates regarding the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace because survey results differ according to the definition of sexual harassment, type of population, type of organization or organizational setting, method of inquiry, and so forth (Gutek & Dunwoody, 1987; Hopkins & Johnson, 1982; Terpstra & Baker, 1991). Most of the studies have found, however, that the prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace is widespread (40% to 90%) in its less severe form (i.e., verbal harassment and sexual suggestions), whereas fewer women workers (2% to 20%) are being harassed by the severe type of behavior, such as sexual bribery or sexual assault (e.g., Crull, 1982; Ellis et al., 1991; Fitzgerald et al., 1988; Gruber & Bjorn, 1982; Gutek, 1985; Gutek, Nakamura, Gahart, Handschumacher, & Russell, 1980; LaFontaine & Tredeau, 1986; Maypole & Skaine, 1982; U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1981, 1988).

There is damage caused by sexual harassment in the workplace on both the personal and institutional level. Survey findings (e.g., Balshem, 1988; Gutek, 1985; Gruber & Bjorn, 1982; Jensen & Gutek, 1982; Junger, 1987; Loy & Stewart, 1984; Tangri, Burt, & Johnson, 1982; U.S. Merit Systems Board, 1981, 1988) and evidence accumulated from counseling and psychotherapy cases (e.g., Bursten, 1986; Crull, 1982; Hamilton, Alagna, King, & Lloyd, 1987; Salisbury, Ginorio, Remick, & Stringer, 1986; Spratlen, 1988) have revealed that sexual harassment at work results in various negative outcomes, such as emotional distress, disturbances in interpersonal relations, and damage to family relations and sexual functioning, as well as a decrease in motivation and work effectiveness.

In addition to personal harm, sexual harassment in the workplace presents a major hazard for organizations. First, there is indirect damage caused by a negative effect on employee work-related behavior, which results in higher rates of absenteeism and turnover (Coles, 1986; Gutek & Dunwoody, 1987; Terpstra, 1986; Terpstra & Cook, 1985) and a decrease in job performance (e.g., Crull, 1982; U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1981, 1988). In addition, there is direct financial hazard for organizations, with legal expenses related to legal charges, as well as possible fines and compensation fees or other penalties (e.g., Garvey, 1986; Gay, 1991; Terpstra & Baker, 1988, 1992).

Various steps have been suggested and actually taken to handle sexual harassment in the workplace: legal, organizational, and educational. Legal steps dealing with sexual harassment have included the application of existing legislature, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its adaptation to guidelines on sexual harassment (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1980) in the United States or the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 in the United Kingdom (Gay, 1991). These laws define the nature of sexual harassment as an offense and establish legal grounds for criminal as well as civil persecution. In addition, numerous organizations, business as well as educational institutions, have established local guidelines, policies, and regulations on sexual harassment, including definitions of unlawful behavior, specifying grievance procedures and possible punishments (cf. Howard, 1991; Shullman & Watts, 1990). Although there have been numerous legal charges and formal complaints, legal remedies seem not to be an effective cure for the widespread existence of sexual harassment (Riger, 1991). There may be several reasons for this failure, including the preference of most women not to make complaints because of fear for their jobs as well as the loss of privacy and intimacy (Gutek, 1985; Schneider, 1985), the difficulty of providing and supporting evidence for such complaints (Baxter, 1985; Gay, 1991), exemptions and limitations of various laws and regulations (McKinney & Maroules, 1991), alleged gender bias in regulations and grievance procedures (Riger, 1991), and problems in interpretation of sexual harassment definitions in guidelines (York, 1989). In addition to these obstacles with legal remedies combatting sexual harassment, several authors have questioned the more basic assumption that the existence of a law and a legal threat could prevent wrong doings at all (e.g., Barak, 1992; Howard, 1991; Schneider, 1985). These authors have argued that even though legislation is indeed needed, it must be accompanied by social-organizational changes, as well as educational ones.

Organizational interventions proposed for coping with sexual harassment have included both procedural-practical actions as well as more appeals to the conscience (e.g., "It is not nice to..." "It is not right to..."). Organizations have been encouraged (and in some places forced by law) to adopt sexual harassment guidelines and policies and to develop proper grievance procedures tailored to an organization's structure, functions, or specific population. These steps have been designed to enable maximum availability, clearness, and discreetness, and yet to be effective in handling sexual harassment allegations. Also, organizations have been encouraged or actually mandated by law in various statutes to have more general equality between the sexes, regarding salary, rank, and responsibilities, assuming that sexual harassment is a result of employment inequality (Gay, 1991). It has been recommended that persons having prior sexual harassment convictions be identified and not be hired (Gutek, 1985) and that organizations adopt a policy of nonsexist language. Other organizational interventions that have been suggested involve the inclusion of the topic in orientation sessions for new employees (Terpstra & Baker, 1991), regular discussions of sexual harassment in management meetings (Gutek, 1985; Hemming, 1985; Stringer, Remick, Salisbury, & Ginorio, 1990), the communication of antisexual harassment messages from authoritarian figures in the organization (Ellis et al., 1991; Hoffman, 1986; Howard, 1991), and actions to change the norms and environment related to intergender relationships (Ellis et al., 1991; Livingston, 1982; Spann, 1990) and specifically to address the topic with potential harassers--mostly men (Carr, 1991; Stringer et al., 1990).

EMPLOYEE EDUCATION

A special kind of organizational intervention proposed for decreasing and preventing sexual harassment is the concentration on employee education and training. This approach contends that people should become aware of policies and legislation so that they can adopt them as well as become sensitized to the issue of sexual harassment itself, including its development, individual and organizational costs and the like. Hence, lectures and workshops for potential harassers, such as university faculty and staff members, have been proposed (e.g., Carr, 1991; Paludi & Barickman, 1990). To achieve a similar level of knowledge and awareness about the issues and also to acquire effective responses and coping skills, interventions for female workers have also been proposed (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1981). These interventions have the basic premise that developing proper understanding of the sexual harassment phenomenon, getting acquainted with organization policies and grievance procedures, and learning possible reactions to sexual harassment attempts should reduce its extent. A survey by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (1988), however, found no correlation in 22 U.S. government agencies between the extent of sexual harassment employee training and the rate of reported sexual harassment. This finding, however, may present a generalization about different "training programs" that included only superficial interventions such as general orientation sessions and intensive psychologically based workshops. Generally, there seems to be a notable lack of research on training interventions in this area (Fitzgerald & Shullman, 1993).

Various self-defense programs against rape and sexual assault have been suggested (cf. Thompson, 1991), but only three of those published have dealt directly with the more general issue of sexual harassment. Kaufman and Wylie (1983) described a one-session workshop for university students. The workshop included an introduction, in which the subject of sexual harassment was defined and analyzed; a section devoted to describing complaint procedures; and a third part, in which coping techniques were reviewed. A part of this last section involved role playing, where a student reacted to sexual harassment initiated by a professor. On the whole, however, this workshop was based on didactic learning and brief discussions. No evidence was supplied regarding the workshop's impact. Beauvais (1986) reported on the University of Michigan's "Tell Someone" sexual harassment training workshop, which was designed to teach university students coping skills against work-related and academic sexual harassment. The workshop presented 12 videotaped samples of sexual harassment scenarios that triggered group discussions, under the supervision of a skilled facilitator. Empirical findings showed that this workshop changed participant (of both sexes) understanding of and attitudes toward sexual harassment, although no evidence was available regarding the effectiveness of the workshop in actually reducing the prevalence of sexual harassment or equipping its participants with more efficient coping behaviors. Licata and Popovich (1987) described a prototype of a four-stage training program dealing with workplace sexual harassment based on role negotiation and clarification, which was designed to open channels of communication concerning work- and gender-role conflicts between men and women in the workplace. The workshop involved discussions of various definitions of sexual harassment and facts and stereotypes related to them (first phase), the organization's and superior's responsibilities in sexual harassment prevention (second phase), the application of a role negotiation technique (third phase), and the effectiveness evaluation of the program's contribution to the acquisition of knowledge and behavior change of its participants. The proposed format of the program was lecture, group discussion, and role play. No further information was provided regarding the program's actual application or impact.

COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL WORKSHOP

In designing yet another sexual harassment training workshop, to be discussed later, some of the ideas from the three programs discussed earlier were adopted, along some original ones. This concept was based on several principles: (a) to be relatively brief yet intensive, so that it would be welcome by management (Enke & Sudderth, 1991); (b) to be based on recent information about the sexual harassment phenomena; (c) to focus on the development of coping skills and the acquisition of experience and not on the sharing of past experiences and the transmission of ideas (Thompson, 1991); (d) to use effective cognitive-behavioral educational techniques; (e) to include only women participants (in contrast to the programs cited earlier) to allow for more openness and less defensiveness in the group process (Thompson, 1991); (f) to limit the number of participants so that each one would receive enough attention and be able to practice most tasks; (g) to have a modular format so that activities could be altered, replaced, or skipped according to a given group of participants; and (h) to measure the impact of the workshop in combatting sexual harassment.

This workshop was designed for approximately 10 to 15 female workers, to be administered during 1 day, and to include various cognitive-modification techniques such as live modeling, video modeling, simulation games, role playing, and structured small-group discussions. All of these techniques have been found to be effective means in social skills acquisition (e.g., Ballard & Glynn, 1986; Bandura, 1986; Crookall et al., 1988; Dowrick & Biggs, 1983; Maier, 1989; Taylor & Schneider, 1989). In addition, a preliminary evaluation of impact of the workshop as a primary prevention intervention was included.

DESCRIPTION OF WORKSHOP

The cognitive-behavioral workshop consisted of two phases, each including three learning exercises. Before the first phase began, there was a brief introduction and a general description of the program for the day.

Phase 1: Development of Awareness and Understanding of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

The purpose of this phase was for the participants to understand the sexual harassment phenomena. In this way, it was hoped that personal awareness and sensitivity to the various facets of the issue in question would be generated. The general assumption in developing this phase, as supported by most research cited earlier, was that many women (as well as men) typically have limited and inaccurate knowledge about sexual harassment and thus tend to hold prejudiced beliefs and stereo-types related to this subject. These wrong cognitions affect their inability and unwillingness to cope with it. Moreover, it was the basic assumption of the approach discussed here that these deficiencies influence women in such a way that they usually neglect or overlook observable clues about the origination of sexual harassment behavior, and even positively, without being aware, react to them in a reinforcing manner, thus unknowingly and unwontedly contributing to the escslation of the sexual harassment process (Abbey, 1991). This phase included three experiential exercises (activities), each of which focused on a different aspect or mode of sexual harassment.

Just Talking

Purpose. The purpose was to help participants develop awareness concerning identifying, perceiving, and judging sexually harassing verbal messages. These cognitive processes were meant to be analyzed and learned as related to the sex of the message initiator, initiator status, tone of voice on the one hand, and participant self-image, sensitivity, and so forth, on the other.

Procedure. The participants were given a response sheet with the following instructions: "You are about to listen to a series of six taped sentences. These sentences are said to you by a [male friend/male boss/female boss]. After listening to each sentence, please check on the list below the words that best and most accurately describe your feelings." The instructions were followed by a table, where the columns represented the six sentences and the rows included 20 randomly ordered adjectives, representing various negative to positive feelings, such as frustration, joy, fear, anger, satisfaction, hatred, excitement, helplessness, and indifference. There was a different but identical response sheet for each of the three talkers on the tape (identified in the page title).

The audiotape included messages taped by two men and a woman saying the identical six sentences: (a) "Ruthy--you are good with numbers. So quickly prepare this report for us please!" (b) "Pretty girl--why don't you make us something to drink?" (c) "What?! You haven't made the call yet?! You are so lucky I'm dying for you," (d) "Debbi--with eyes like yours, you sure know where the file is I'm looking for," (e) "Baby--be good and find the letter from Mr. Berkowich," and (f) "Rosie--be a doll and make us some coffee."

After listening to the three sets of six sentences and checking their responses, the participants were given time to review their own responses and compare them with the various messages and the three speakers. Next, a brief guided discussion was held to enable the participants to share experiences and reach common conclusions: that the initial status and sex of the message initiator influences, to a large degree, judgment and related emotional response; that different women react differently to identical messages because of previous experience, personality, and so forth; and that explicitness of sexual message has a direct as well as relative (depending on initiator status and sex) effect on perceived harassment. This activity lasted approximately 30 minutes.

Dina's Story

Purpose. The purpose was to help the participants realize that there is a gap between sexual advancing behavior and its perception and interpretation. This activity illustrated the contribution of various behavioral messages, in interaction with a number of personal and social characteristics, which usually form sexual advancing and sexual harassing attributions by different women.

Procedure. This activity was based on a case analysis in which a man initiates a sexual advancing behavior toward a woman (Dina). The group was divided into several subgroups of approximately four members each. The case was presented in writing to the participants in three sequential parts. Each participant received a copy of each part of the story and a questionnaire with five questions that the participant had to answer after reading each part of the story. After all subgroup members had answered the questions to a given story part, they had to discuss and share their answers.

The questions focused on five topics: (a) the man's intentions; (b) Dina's feelings, thoughts, and perceptions of the man's behavior; (c) the participant's feelings about the man's behavior; (d) the participant's feelings about Dina's behavior; and (e) the participant's expectations regarding e development of the story.

The case story was told in the first person (by Dina): Dina was employed as a sales representative in the marketing department of a large company. She was a very good worker and liked her job. In the first part of her story, Dina told how she went to a 3-day conference held in a hotel for all sales representatives of the firm, where she gave a talk and later met with the company's vice president for marketing, who complimented her work and her presentation. He later behaved in a way that could be perceived either as a sexual advance or as innocent social gestures. Dina also reported that her female friends warned her that the vice president was very interested in women. In the second part of her story, Dina told about the late night visit to her hotel room by the vice president, who was quite explicit in his expectations and was rejected by her. In the third and the last part of the serial, Dina told how she was later mistreated by her direct (male) superior for what was implicitly related to Dina's rejection of the vice president's sexual advances.

Afterward, there was a full group discussion in which members of the subgroups reported on their various impressions and conclusions. The workshop narrator then summarized the opinions and stressed that an individual's perceptions and reactions were a function of perceived intentions of the initiator (friendly, power imposition, or sexual exploitation) and that an individual's judgments were related to behavioral and environmental cues as well as to personality and personal experiences. The second activity lasted approximately 1 hour.

What Does It Do to You?

Purpose. The purpose was threefold: (a) to teach the different forms and levels of sexual harassment; (b) to develop personal sensitivity to and awareness of different verbal and nonverbal cues that caused certain behavior to be perceived as sexually harassing; and (c) to develop personal awareness of the emotions, ideal responses, and actual responses within sexual harassment episodes.

Procedure. This activity was based on a serial of five videotaped episodes of sexual harassment initiated by a man (the harasser) toward a woman (the victim).

At the beginning of this activity, each participant received a general instruction sheet briefly describing the exercise and was asked to put herself in the place of the victim, focusing on three question areas: (a) "How do you feel? What does the man's behavior do to you?" (b) "If you were completely frank, free of restrictions, and without any fear, how would you want to react to the man?" and (c) "How do you think you would have actually reacted in this situation?"

The videotaped episodes were built in a serial and developmental manner to represent an escalation of the sexual harassment sequence. The same harasser and victim participated in all scenes. To enable the participants to generalize what they had learned, however, each episode consisted of an independent script based on a different workplace, relative status, and so forth. In the first episode, there was a scene with a manager using sexist remarks toward his secretary and telling a chauvinistic joke to another man over the phone. In the second episode, there was a scene showing a man looking penetratingly at a female co-worker and making suggestive gestures toward her as she innocently approached him. In the third episode, there was a man (apparently, the boss) approaching a female typist from behind, caressing and fondling her neck and hair and pressing her body toward his, while she remained passive and frozen. In the forth episode, the scene presented a male boss trying to bribe his female administrative assistant by promising her special favors for sexual cooperation. In the fifth and last episode, the scene included a male boss who was forcing physical contact with a female subordinate and was demanding sexual favors and using overt threats of punishment. Professional actors demonstrated these scenarios in the videotapes, each clip lasting approximately 5 minutes.

The participants observed the movie clips in a group and were instructed to put themselves in the place of the woman in each scene. After viewing each clip, the participants were asked to write their reactions and then, in a group discussion, to focus on personal perceptions and judgments, behavioral cues of sexual harassment, expected versus ideal responses, and the attributed causes of these discrepancies. At each step, discussion was followed by a summary and conclusions by the workshop narrator. After the final step, the narrator initiated a final discussion to come to an overall conclusion. This activity lasted approximately 1 hour.

Phase 2: Development of Coping Skills With Sexual Harassment at the Workplace

The purpose of this phase was to develop skills for coping with sexual harassment attempts. This phase was based on simulations, role playing, and modeling so that participants would acquire the necessary skills to respond to various forms of sexual harassment initiations and to practice these skills under supervision and with constructive feedback. This phase also included three activities, each focusing on different coping skills or other skill acquisition techniques.

Advice, Advice, Advice...

Purpose. This activity had four objectives: (a) to get participants acquainted with various possible response options and with the advice they might expect from various sources in cases of sexual harassment; (b) to experience and understand the conflicts, uncertainty, stress, and other emotional difficulties related to selecting each possible response option; (c) to understand the advantages and disadvantages of various response options with different types of sexual harassment behaviors and situations; and (d) to emphasize the personal considerations involved in selecting one or another response option and the importance of accepting a conscious responsibility for selecting a response.

Procedure. This activity used role playing. The participants were divided into two or three subgroups. In each subgroup there was one participant who was assigned the role of a sexual harassment "victim" while the other subgroup members served as "advisers."

The victim received a detailed description of a sexual harassment incident that supposedly had happened to her. The incident involved a female secretarial employee in a government office who had repeatedly been exposed to various forms of sexual harassment attempts by her male boss. The role player was instructed to learn the story, to try to identify with the woman as far as thoughts and emotions were concerned, and then to (authentically) tell the story to several of her work colleagues and try to get their advice on how to react to this situation. She was also instructed to question each piece of advice given.

The advisers each received pre-specified advice for the victim. They had no previous knowledge of the harassment incident, only hearing it together as reported by the victim. The different responses from the advisers were (a) to deny the harassment component of the incident, trying to convince the victim that there was no sexual imposition, assault, or exploitation at all; (b) to tell the victim to keep away from the harasser, avoiding contact with him, changing to another position, if possible, or even resigning from her job; (c) to tell the victim to consult and get help from a therapist in an attempt to overcome personal emotional difficulties, shame, guilt feelings, and so on; (d) to advise the victim to change her appearance and behavior so that she would be less attractive, less tempting, and less arousing to the harasser, (e) to tell the victim to report the incident to someone within the organization, such as the harasser's superior, the personnel director, and so forth; (f) to recommend that the victim report the incident to an external functions agent like the police, a sexual assault hotline, a lawyer, and so forth; (g) to suggest that the victim (both verbally and physically) aggressively respond against the harasser, including slapping his face, kicking, yelling, and threatening him; and (h) to tell the victim to behave assertively with the harasser, stand on her basic human rights, insist on her requests, and communicate these thoughts in a straightforward and direct manner. The advisers were instructed to try and identify with the respective advice that they were assigned and to try their best to convince the victim that their personal advice was the best offered. This was done by both direct attempts to persuade the victim and a group discussion among all advisers. This activity lasted approximately 1 hour.

Lovesick Alex

Purpose. The purpose of this activity was to develop awareness of and to teach appropriate and inappropriate woman's responses to sexually harassing situations.

Procedure. This activity used a serial of six videotaped episodes of sexual harassment scenarios initiated by a male boss (Alex) toward his female secretary (Debby). The episodes were ordered in a deteriorating sequence, with the severity level of the harassing behavior becoming gradually greater. In all of the episodes, there were some different verbal and nonverbal reactions by the victim. All of the episodes were divided into two parts: sexually harassing behavior initiated by the man, and a response by the woman. The scenarios were performed by professional actors, with a precise script in a natural environment, carefully designed to represent each sexual harassment incident exactly.

The participants watched the videotape in a group. They each received a cover page describing the assignment along with two questionnaires. In the first questionnaire, the participants had to offer an adequate response to "In your opinion, how should Debby respond?" for each episode, including both verbal reactions and additional components (e.g., nonverbal behavior, use of external means). In the second questionnaire, the participants had to write the positive and the negative aspects of Debby's actual response to Alex's behavior. Then there was group discussion to present individual ideas and evaluation and to elicit feedback from other participants as well as from the workshop narrator. This activity lasted approximately 90 minutes.

Grievance Procedures

Purpose. There were two goals for this activity. The first was to make the participants aware of expected difficulties involved in following standard grievance procedures when filing a sexual harassment complaint (e.g., to get participants acquainted with the suspicious questioning of those receiving these complaints, the uncomfortable interrogation involved, the need to expose very personal and sensitive matters, and so on). The second goal was to provide participants with effective skills on the one hand and to eliminate ineffective or incorrect behavior on the other hand, in practicing these grievance procedures.

Procedure. One participant volunteered to be the victim. She received a role description in which she pretended to be a CPA (certified public accountant), in a firm, who was sexually harassed by her male boss and his male assistant. The event had begun several months earlier when these two men (together and individually) verbally harassed her and implicitly and explicitly suggested various kinds of sexual behavior with her. Recently, the pressure on her had intensified with the black-mailing of her to cooperate sexually in return for special favors at work. She decided to complain to the firm's human resources department.

A male actor took the role of the firm's human resources department director. He met with the woman employee at her request and had

conversation with her in which he first listened to her report and then started lawyer-like questioning (characterized by what is commonly considered picking, insensitive, and chauvinistic interrogation). The man's approach, as initially directed, was to assume and to insinuate that the woman was exaggerating the incident, was guilty because she had tempted the men, was imagining things (or was wishful thinking), or had something against these men or against the firm and wanted to take revenge, and so on. The woman's role was to best represent her case and to try to convince the man of her sincere and serious feelings and the true purpose of her complaint. The talk took place in front of all of the participants.

The rest of the participants observed this role playing and afterward had to fill out a form, writing their responses to several questions dealing with (a) their belief in the woman's story, her trustworthiness, and her accuracy in reporting of fine details; (b) their judgment of whether the woman was capable of coping with the director's interrogation; and (c) their impressions of what the woman was going through.

Following the interview, which lasted 30 minutes, there was a group discussion in which the participants shared their personal comments. The workshop narrator especially focused on the weak and strong points in the woman's behavior that led to certain impressions, feelings, and consequent outcomes. The whole activity lasted approximately 1 hour.

Following this sixth and last activity, the participants received a printed list of common stereotypical attitudes and myths concerning sexual harassment (e.g., "women wish to be raped"), which were followed by contradictory statements (e.g., "women do not wish to be raped") together with the scientifically correct information.

IMPACT OF THE WORKSHOP

Although the effectiveness of any counseling intervention can be carefully examined in a well-designed study, the impact of a primary preventive program in general is difficult to evaluate because of several reasons (Hermalin & Weirich, 1983; Morell, 1981). First, it is complicated to assess actual changes as far as the targeted behavior is concerned because there are difficulties in determining the actual baseline for such a comparison. Second, because of the very sensitive nature of the problems to be prevented (e.g., alcohol and other drug abuse, unwanted pregnancy, or sexual harassment), there is an essential difficulty in reliably assessing the extent of these phenomena, especially in a pre-post design.

Morell (1981) discussed the need to evaluate prevention programs and argued that three facets should be evaluated: validity, utility, and theory. Although evaluation of success in terms of utility and theory are possible without having to survey extent and rate of problem incidence, validity necessarily includes factors of client measurements. Conner (1990) discussed the difficulties and ethical hazards in evaluating prevention programs by experimental and quasiexperimental procedures and argued that the program's clients themselves should be and are its best assessors, according to their own norms, sensitivities, and desires.

Because the basis of the current workshop was established on theoretical and empirical grounds of skill acquisition and development on the one hand and sexual harassment on the other, the theory evaluation facet of the program was basically supported in terms of content validity. The utility evaluation facet may also be positively evaluated because the cost of the workshop is probably much less than are organizational costs caused by probable sexual harassment, especially if litigation is involved. The exact magnitude of this utility value, if the workshop is actually successful in preventing or reducing sexual harassment incidents, is still to be determined. Conner's (1990) approach in the validity evaluation facet was adopted by prediscussing with the workshop's clients how to evaluate outcome effectiveness for both the participants and the organization. The three factors evaluated were (a) participants' satisfaction with the workshop, (b) participants' own reports of experiencing sexual harassment before and a year after participating in the workshop, and (c) general appraisal feedback offered by organizational officers.

METHOD

Participants

There were two groups, for a total of 25 female participants, all employed in various positions in a government agency, working in several different offices. The participants represented a range of ages (ranging from 22 to 55 years), educational levels (high school to advanced university degree), and occupations (e.g., secretaries, accountants, computer operators). All of the participants were recruited for the workshop on a voluntary basis.

Procedure

The participants were randomly divided into two groups of 12 and 13 participants, who took part in the workshop on two separate days. Before the workshop started, all of the participants were asked to fill out an anonymous survey questionnaire that inquired about their sexual harassment experiences, in the year prior to the workshop, if any, at their workplace. The questionnaire was a version of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire (SEQ; Ellis et al., 1991; Fitzgerald et al., 1988), adjusted to suit the local organizational structure. It contained 33 items related to various kinds of sexually harassing episodes, representing five levels or sexual harassment severity. (Several items were added to or revised from the original questionnaire.)

At the end of the workshop, the participants were asked to anonymously fill out a four-item questionnaire related to their satisfaction with the workshop. The four items referred to (a) the way participants felt about the workshop's contribution to their skills of coping with sexual harassment, (b) the way the workshop was planned in regard to efficiency and goals attainment, (c) the way the workshop was narrated, and (d) the degree to which participants would recommend to fellow female workers such a workshop. All items were rated on 7-point scales (1 = low, 7 = high).

Approximately 10 to 12 months after the workshop was administered, six randomly selected participants were personally interviewed concerning their sexual harassment experiences following the workshop. Using this small sample size, as well as not using written, more objective measures, had been initially determined in the discussions with workshop clients. The interviews were brief, promised anonymity to the participants, and included specific questions referring to different types of sexual harassment attempts and responses to them. In addition, two organizational officers (head of personnel and head of training) were also personally interviewed concerning the way they evaluated the workshop's contribution to the existence of sexual harassment in the organization.

RESULTS

Prevalence of Sexual Harassment

The findings of the SEQ showed that in the year prior to the workshop, the participants experienced various types of sexual harassment behaviors. Some 54% (n = 13), on the average, were exposed to verbal sexual harassment(Level 1), ranging from 14% (n = 3) who reported being in a situation at work in which a man distributed sexually seductive materials to 82% (n = 20) who were in situations in which a man told stories with sexual insinuations or sexual jokes. One third of the participants, on the average, were exposed to sexually suggestive behaviors (Level 2), ranging from 5% (n = 1) who reported experiences with a male co-worker's making offensive sexual remarks about them to others to 50% (n = 12) who had a male co-worker "proposition" them. Approximately 9% (n =2) on the average reported attempts of sexual bribery (Level 3), ranging from no one's being offered explicit rewards for sexual cooperation to 18%(n =4) who were actually rewarded by a male co-worker for privately socializing with him. About 8% (n = 2) on the average reported experiences of sexual blackmail (Level 4), ranging from no one's being actually involved in some sort of sexual behavior because of threats or punishments to 14% (n = 3) who experienced situations in which they had been pressured to engage in sexual activity by direct threats. Some 8% (n = 2) on the average reported sexual assault (Level 5), ranging from no one's experiencing a situation in which a male co-worker forced her to touch his body to 27% (n = 7) who experienced unwanted forceful attempts of fondling, touches, grabs, kisses, and so forth. These figures resemble the results of large surveys in various samples of women workers (e.g., Ellis et al., 1991 Fitzgerald et al., 1988; Gutek, 1985; Lafontaine & Tredeau, 1986; Loy & Stewart, 1984; Terpstra & Cook, 1985; U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1981, 1988).

In the 10- to 12-month follow-up interviews, none of the 6 participants reported any sort of engagement in a sexually harassing situation of a severity level higher than Level 2 (sexual suggestions). All 6 of them reported experiencing various sorts of verbal harassment, and 3 (50%) of them had sexually suggestive experiences initiated by male co-workers. The 6 interviewees, however, reported that they had constructively coped with the sexual harassment episodes that they had experienced and felt resourceful and efficient in coping. In all of the incidents, the women's respective responses caused the harassers to discontinue their unwanted sexually harassing attempts toward them. All of the interviewees freely suggested that it was the workshop's input that had made their coping successful.

Workshop Feedback Questionnaires

The results of the postworkshop feedback questionnaires revealed that the workshop was very positively evaluated. The question regarding the contribution of the workshop to the participants' coping skills with sexual harassment received a mean response of 5.6 (SD = 1.1). The question related to the workshop's efficiency in planning and achieving its goals was rated 6.1 on the average (SD = 1.2). The item that involved how participants evaluated the workshop's narration received a mean response of 6.7 (SD = 0.8). The item asking about the participants' tendency to recommend participating in a similar workshop to other female workers averaged 6.3 (SD = 0.9).

Organizational Evaluation

The interviews with the two organizational officers added some information regarding the positive contribution of the workshop to the reduction of sexual harassment in the workplace. In addition to having responses similar to those of the participants, both of these managers reported that participation in the workshops and the secondary effects following them have influenced the organizational atmosphere regarding sexual harassment. Thus, it seems that this specific intervention caused second-order effects as well, and hence seems to indicate a further contribution to the reduction of sexual harassment at the workplace.

CONCLUSION

The preliminary findings concerning the impact of the workshop in reducing sexual harassment clearly suggest its implementation as an effective remedy for coping with this social problem. Given the methodological limitations of the current study (e.g., restricted sample, limited effectiveness criteria), there is a need, however, to examine further the workshop's effectiveness with additional investigations aimed at testing its utility and validity. Future research might enlarge the scope of the work by looking at other types of organizations and by using more reliable measures of sexual harassment and measures of workshop effectiveness.

It is reasonable to expect that the workshop had not only a primary impact but also a secondary effect (i.e., the very knowledge of its existence, the sharing by participants of their experiences at work after the completion of the workshop, and participant behavior as a model for other woman workers all had a positive effect on the decrease in prevalence of sexual harassment in the organization). Thus, the assessed impact of the workshop may be of total input, not only just of the intervention workshop. Further research could address this question.

The workshop was purposely designed in modules to allow for ease of adjustment to make it appropriate for various organizations or women's groups, as well as for different situations and emphases. Any of its units can be replaced, adjusted, eliminated, or extended, as well as added on to according to individual needs. The workshop outline, for instance, dealt only superficially with legal cases and precedents, but this important subject (Kronenberger & Bourke, 1981; Spann, 1990) could be developed into a structured module that would be easily integrated into the program.

It is important to comment on the men's part in this specific workshop's approach. It was purposely decided to concentrate on women as the workshop topic, participants, and subject of sexual harassment. This decision was made assuming that in such an environment women would be more encouraged to open up and cooperate on this sensitive issue. This by no means implies that it is not important to educate male workers or to ignore men being harassed by women, or the importance of having combined educational experiences as well. Nonetheless, the distinctive composition and concentration of this workshop may have been a special (but not necessarily sufficient) contribution to the effective reduction of sexual harassment.

Effective action against sexual harassment in the workplace demands a comprehensive approach--using the implementation of proper legal remedies and grievance procedures, as well as intervention for social organizational change (e.g., Howard, 1991; Livingston, 1982). Still, none of the aforementioned strategies, although theoretically or empirically appropriate, can by itself eliminate the phenomenon, but its effectiveness is probably dependent on the simultaneous existence of other elements as well. Hence, this workshop--however effective and important--should not be implemented as a single event, but, rather, it should be part of a total program to handle sexual harassment effectively.

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Azy Barak is an associate professor in the Division of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. This work was carried out at Tel Aviv University, Israel. The author is grateful to Louise Fitzgerald, Zipi Gilboa, Irit Heruti, Michele Paludi, Adaya Pinto, Alina Pitsirski, Danny Roth, and Roberta Stock for their help with this project. Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Azy Barak, Division of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, 1137 Western Road, London, Ontario, Canada N6G 1G7.