Indiana CARES (Creating Accountability and Building Relationships to Eradicate Sex Harassment)

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Project Summary We address calls for research that will inform paradigm-shifting interventions to address sexual harassment and racialized mistreatment of advanced trainees in biomedical research training environments (NOT-OD-21-150). Our approach is grounded in power-approach and moral licensing theories which examines how personal embodiment of power in the context of structural inequities mobilizes harassing and racist mistreatment of trainees. We conduct rigorous experience sampling research to capture the effects of research mentors’ daily power embodiment on mentees’ experiences of sexual harassment and related mistreatments to better understand these linkages and exacerbating factors. We further develop a comprehensive intervention, Indiana CARES (Creating Accountability and Building Relationships to Eradicate Sexual Harassment), designed to break the links between power and harassment and change the training environment climate and practices so that mentees can thrive. For Aim 1, 320 pairs of mentor-mentees in biomedical research training programs will be solicited to participate in a 10-day daily survey study. Mentors will complete daily measures of their power embodiment, affective states, and moral licensing cognitions. Mentees will complete evening measures of their experiences of mistreatment by their mentors. Qualitative data on the nature of any mistreatment they experience will be solicited. We further examine whether racial minority mentees are particularly vulnerable to experiencing racialized sexual harassment, microaggression and ostracism and we explore how structural characteristics, such as the relational demography (race/gender matching) of mentor-mentee dyads, as well as the program’s tolerance for harassment and mistreatment, as reported by mentees, affects these linkages. For Aim 2, biomedical, research-active faculty at IUPUI and IUSM will be randomly assigned to a treatment or control cohort. Our intervention consists of a four-part training program focusing on addressing the role of power and moral licensing through perspective-taking and empathy training, followed by a program-centered organizational change initiative supported by Program Enhancement Grants (PEGs). Research will examine the impact of the training on breaking the power- harassment link for mentors and improving their sensitivity to harassment and racial mistreatment. Furthermore, our research will examine the impact of the full Indiana CARES intervention on improving the climate for sexual harassment intolerance, and increasing mentees’ sense of belongingness and early career outcomes through reductions in harassment and racist mistreatment. We replicate this program for the control cohort in the final year.