Sex Roles, Vol. 27, Nos. 3/4, 1992 Sources of Variability in Perceptions of and Responses to Sexual Harassment Tricia S. Jones Temple University Martin S. Remland West Chester University Social exchange theory was used to explain sexual harassment interactions in terms of perceived or actual inequities in incurred costs or rewards between targets and perpetrators. A factorial experiment was conducted in which the effects of severity of harassment, target response, target gender, and rater gender on perceptions of harassment, perpetrator appropriateness and target appropriateness and suggested responses to harassment were examined. Ninety-four male and 116 female students from two eastern universities served as subjects. The sample was approximately 90% Caucasian and was composed of traditional (18-22-year-old) undergraduates. Results indicated that all independent variables affected perceptions of and responses to sexual harassment situations. Sexual harassment in academe is a serious problem as Dzeich and Werner (1984) conclude in their comprehensive review of sexual harassment re- search in university and college settings. Targets of harassment in academe generally have less power and fewer avenues of recourse available than their corporate counterparts (Reilly, Carpenter, Dull, & Bartlett, 1982). Usually conceptualizing harassment as a women's issue, researchers of academic harassment often restrict sampling to exclusively female popu- lations (Benson & Thomson, 1982; Till, 1980) or depict harassment as ex- clusively female-target/male-perpetrator interactions (Dzeich & Weiner, 1984; Fitzgerald & Hesson-Mclnnis, 1989; Reilly et al., 1982; Rossi & We- ber-Rudin, 1983; Sigal, Gibbs, Belford, Ronan, & Gervasio, 1987; Weber- 121 0360-0025/92/0800-0121506.50/0 © i992 Plenum Publishing Corporation