Grant: Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA)

How humans make sense of harassment is multifaceted, can profoundly affect physical, mental, and emotional health, and is patterned. Using a Dual-Rumination Model of Sexual Harassment allows for exploration of responses. In this model, rumination is categorized into two groups: personal rumination on thinking about how that experience personally affected oneself, and group-focused rumination on thinking about how the experience is shared by many other members of one's group and how these experiences impact the entire group. Our previous work found that personal rumination in response to sexual harassment experiences predicted depression symptoms (maladjustment). In contrast, group-focused rumination led to collective action (relative adjustment). To our knowledge, we are the first to empirically test the distinction between these two forms of rumination in the context of sexual harassment. As part of this project with me entitled "Making the Personal Political: Personal versus Group-Focused Rumination Following Sexual Harassment" student researcher Kelysian will examine how racialized women respond to harassment and discrimination. Kelysian will use an intersectional framework and test a "double jeopardy" hypothesis looking at the joint effects of racial and sexual harassment on racialized women. This past term, my lab collected data from psychology undergraduates and Kelysian will extend data collection to include community members to diversify and generalize results beyond undergraduates. Kelysian will be focused on depression-related responses, but will also collect data on collective action.