Religious harassment in the workplace: An examination of observer intervention

• Author: Sonia Ghumman,Ann Marie Ryan,Jin Suk Park
• Date: 01 February 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2044
• Published date: 01 February 2016

Religious harassment in the workplace: An

examination of observer intervention

SONIA GHUMMAN

1

*, ANN MARIE RYAN

2

AND JIN SUK PARK

3

1

Shidler College of Business, Department of Management, University of Hawaii at Manoa, U.S.A.

2

Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, U.S.A.

3

Shidler College of Business/MIR Department, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.

Summary Religious harassment claims in the United States have risen sharply over the past decade. However, victims of

religious harassment may not always report harassment, and true rates may be higher. Hence, actions taken by

third parties present (observers) are important in combating harassment in the workplace. The purpose of this

paper is to extend a previous model of observer intervention and related research by testing it empirically in

the context of religious harassment and identify factors that influence observers’decision to intervene

(intervention), when they intervene (level of immediacy), and how much they intervene (level of involve-

ment). Across two studies, we find evidence that verbal harassment, ambiguity of intent, relationship to

target/harasser, recurrence belief, religious commitment, pro-social orientation, and the interactive effect of

shared religion and religious commitment predict intervention. Furthermore, individuals show higher levels

of involvement and immediacy in intervention when costs are low and emotional reactions are high. Implica-

tions of these findings for engaging observers in combatting harassment are discussed. Copyright © 2015

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: harassment; religious discrimination; observer intervention

This girl I worked with was J ewish. One day we were all at l unch and we split the bill. Th e girl paid a dollar less tha n

someone else and the kid ac ross from me turned to her and said, “Don’t Jew me out of that dollar.”Shelookedextremely

hurt by this incident.

We have an Arab cook in the -------- Center. He is a male Muslim and everyone cracks jokes behind his back. They say

things like “If you don’t like his food he will put a Jihad on you”and “I’m scared to eat his food cause there is probably

a lot of curry and anthrax in everything.”

The preceding incidences (taken from this study) reflect the presence of religious harassment in the American work-

place. Althoughclearly prohibited by the Civil RightsAct of 1964, religious discriminationclaims over the last decade

have risen more rapidly than those for any other protected group (EEOC, 2015). This is unfortunate as research on

harassment has shown that victims may suffer physical, emotional, and psychological harm (Bowling & Beehr,

2006; Gutek & Koss, 1993; Willness, Steel, & Lee, 2007). Individuals subjected to harassment report lower job

satisfaction,lower organizational commitment, andpoorer work relationships, all factors that canbe costly to organiza-

tions beyond anylegal sanctions. As harassment can leadto negative consequences for victimsas well as organizations,

it is of concern to organizations that seek to create positive diversity climates and reduce harassment occurrence.

Research on religious harassment tends to focus solely on the victim’s perspective (Cragun, Kosmin, Keysar,

Hammer, & Nielson, 2012; Volpe & Strobl, 2005), failing to acknowledge third parties who can respond to inci-

dences of harassment (Skarlicki & Kulik, 2005). This is unfortunate because victims of harassment oftentimes fail

to confront harassers or report behavior to organizational authorities (U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, 1995).

*Correspondence to: Sonia Ghumman, ShIdler College of Business, Department of Management, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2404 Maile

Way, C-502e, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, U.S.A. E-mail: ghumman@hawaii.edu

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 05 May 2014

Revised 12 May 2015, Accepted 22 June 2015

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 279–306 (2016)

Published online 11 August 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2044

Research Article

Thus, for organizations trying to combat harassment, relying solely on victims reporting such behaviors may prove

to be ineffective. Rather, organizations can work at fostering a harassment-free organizational climate by encourag-

ing observers to intervene and to report incidents (O’Leary-Kelly, Paetzold, & Griffin, 2000). However, research

suggests that observers’decisions to intervene may depend on a variety of situational, target/harasser, and personal

influences (Bowes-Sperry & O’Leary-Kelly, 2005), although empirical research on this is rather limited (Benavides-

Espinoza & Cunningham, 2010; Bowes-Sperry & O’Leary-Kelly, 2005; Bowes-Sperry & Powell, 1999; Ryan &

Wessel, 2012). Thus, the primary goal of this paper is to gain a deeper understanding of the conditions that increase

or decrease observers’likelihood to intervene when religious harassment occurs, so as to guide research and orga-

nizations on how to prevent religious harassment in the workplace through observer intervention.

This research contributes to the literature by examining the intersection of two relatively understudied topics, re-

ligious harassment and observer intervention. Even though the EEOC (2015) trend data suggest that religious ha-

rassment is on the rise, religious harassment as a research topic has been relatively ignored, and there is no

existing empirical research that we are aware of that directly addresses observer intervention in religious harassment

in the workplace. Thus, this study extends previous observer intervention research on sexual and sexual orientation

harassment (Bowes-Sperry & O’Leary-Kelly, 2005; Bowes-Sperry & Powell, 1999; Ryan & Wessel, 2012) to reli-

gious harassment. Moreover, we not only examine the generalizability of prior findings to observer intervention in

religious harassment but also investigate novel factors, including those that are unique to religious harassment that

have not been a focus of prior research on intervention. In doing so, we develop and empirically examine a compre-

hensive model of observer intervention in religious harassment in the workplace, which serves to highlight the sim-

ilarities and differences between observer intervention in religious harassment and other harassment types.

We begin by first reviewing the religious harassment literature, particularly noting what is distinct about religious

harassment compared with other types of harassment, and why the topic warrants further examination. Next, we

build from Bowes-Sperry and O’Leary-Kelly’s (2005) theoretical model and related research (Benavides-Espinoza

& Cunningham, 2010; Bowes-Sperry & O’Leary-Kelly, 2005; Bowes-Sperry & Powell, 1999; Ryan & Wessel,

2012) to identify ways in which observers intervene and factors associated with intervention. We then propose

and test hypotheses across two studies.

Religious harassment

Religious harassment in the workplace includes unwanted physical, verbal, and emotional conduct; a hostile and of-

fensive work environment; exclusionary behaviors on the basis of one’s religion; and coerced religious participation

or non-participation as a condition of one’s employment (Civil Rights Act of 1964). The harassment may be targeted

specifically at a religion and come in the form of slurs, insults, jokes, physical taunting, or outright refusal to work

with an employee of a certain faith group. It may also manifest itself less directly via a hostile and offensive work

environment in which the verbal abuse is not necessarily directed at any one person but may still affect individuals

nonetheless.

Religious harassment differs from other forms of harassment in several ways. Specifically, the Jones et al. (1984)

stigma dimension model suggests that perceptions of stigma characteristics (e.g., controllability, stability, visibility,

disruptiveness, and danger) vary across stigmatized groups (i.e., race and gender). These characteristics influence

whether less or more favorable reactions to the stigmatized individual are elicited (Weiner, Perry, & Magnusson,

1988). Perceptions of religion differ from other more commonly studied stigmatized groups. First, gender, race,

and sexual orientation are generally perceived as less controllable and static, whereas religion is viewed as more con-

trollable and variable (Ghumman & Ryan, 2015), given that individuals may choose to or not choose to practice their

faith or even change their faith over time. As individuals with controllable stigmas may be perceived as being more

responsible for their religion, they are subjected to greater stigmatization (Goffman, 1963).

Second, unlike gender and race but similar to sexual orientation, religion is also usually an invisible characteristic

in that one may choose not to reveal one’s religious beliefs (Ragins, 2008), particularly given the secularity of the

280 S. GHUMMAN ET AL.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 37, 279–306 (2016)

DOI: 10.1002/job