From Dominance to Harassment: The Hidden Role of Sexual Intent Perceptions in the Workplace

Sexual intent perceptions refer to instances in which individuals infer sexual interest from other people’s behavior. While past research has explored this in dating settings with student samples, we examine it in a workplace setting. In Study 1 ( N = 212), we found that employees with a strong desire to assert dominance were more likely to infer sexual interest from the behaviors of a different-gendered colleague, regardless of their own gender, formal power position, or general interest in casual sex. In Study 2 ( N = 349), we showed that perceiving sexual interest from coworkers makes individuals more likely to engage in workplace sexual harassment and explains how and why dominance motivation leads to harassment, especially among men. Our findings highlight a psychological process linking dominance motivation to workplace sexual harassment and offer insights to diminish such harassment.