Doctoral Dissertation: A Social Psychological Analysis of Resistance to Equal Opportunity Laws

这篇论文将开发和测试一个社会心理学理论，即旨在减少不平等的法律有时如何被它们对人们对现有地位等级的信念的影响所削弱。平等机会(EO)法律适用于习惯性的和普遍的行为，因此传递了一个信息，即“正常”的人需要改变。我认为法律在走向不稳定的“正常”社会互动模式时会遇到三个重要的阻力来源。第一个是社会中社会群体之间公认的地位秩序，后两个是法律挑起的对现有特权和社会互动规范的威胁。虽然这篇论文将在理论层面上提出一个更大的问题，即对EO法律的共同阻力来源，但它将只测试这一论点在性骚扰法律案件中的一个逻辑应用。我将使用实验研究方法来评估性骚扰政策对男性和女性关于性别地位和差异的信念的影响。将进行一项实验，让男性和女性与异性伴侣一起完成一项基于计算机的任务。有三个条件将比较参与者的性别信念：1)那些被告知男性在任务中的平均得分高于女性的参与者；2)那些在没有受到操纵的情况下完成任务的人。受试者关于性别差异的显性和隐性信念将被测量，然后在不同条件下进行比较，以显示性骚扰政策干预是否以一种不同于其他突出性别的任务导向型情景的方式激活不平等的性别信念。这项研究的结果对理论和政策都有更广泛的影响。调查结果将显示某种类型的性骚扰政策实施的效果。如果结果表明，作为官僚义务或作为避免法律威胁的手段传播的政策，会激活与政策目标背道而驰的信念，这些信息应该有助于组织更有效地执行政策。更广泛地说，明确抵制法律的性质对于理解人们动员法律、遵守法律、保护自己免受法律威胁的条件以及法律何时可以刺激思想变革非常重要。这些结果还应该提供关于如何检查对其他EO政策的抵制的提示性证据，如种族骚扰、平权行动和性取向保护。

This dissertation will develop and test a social psychological theory of how laws aimed at reducing inequality are sometimes undermined by the effect they have on people's beliefs about the existing status hierarchy. Equal opportunity (EO) laws apply to behaviors that are customary and widespread, and thus send the message that "normal" people need to change. I identify three important sources of resistance that laws encounter when they work toward destabilizing "normal" patterns of social interaction. The first is the accepted status order among social groups in society and the latter two are perceived threats to existing privileges and norms of social interaction that the law provokes. While this dissertation will pose, at a theoretical level, a larger question about the common sources of resistance to EO laws, it will test just one logical application of that argument to the case of sexual harassment law. I will use experimental research methods to assess the effect of sexual harassment policies on men's and women's beliefs about gender status and difference. An experiment will be conducted in which males and females complete a computer-based task with a partner of the opposite sex. Three conditions will compare the gender beliefs of participants who are read the university's sexual harassment policy before beginning the task to 1) those who are told that men have higher average scores on the task than women and to 2) those who complete the task with no manipulation. Participants' explicit and implicit beliefs about gender difference will be measured and then compared between conditions to show whether sexual harassment policy interventions activate unequal gender beliefs in a way that differs from other task-oriented situations in which gender is made salient. The results of this study have broader impacts for both theory and policy. Findings will show the effect of a certain type of sexual harassment policy implementation. If the results suggest that policies disseminated as a bureaucratic obligation, or as a means of avoiding legal threat, activate beliefs that run counter to the policy's aims, this information should help organizations implement policies more effectively. More generally, specifying the nature of resistance to laws is important for understanding the conditions under which people mobilize the law, obey the law, and protect themselves from legal threat, as well as when a law can spur ideological change. The results should also provide suggestive evidence about how to examine resistance to other EO policies such as racial harassment, affirmative action, and sexual orientation protections.