Flirting at Work: The Fragmented Norms for How Romantic Interest in a Coworker is Best Expressed

• In Event: 30869 - Open Topics in Social Psychology

Abstract

What makes romantic advances from coworkers inappropriate, and thus, sexual harassment? Understanding this question requires understanding how people think romantic interest in coworkers should be expressed. Drawing on 87 interviews with people working in tech, I find that there is not consensus on this topic. Some interviewees – primarily men – cite possible harms to the organization, initiator, and recipient and advocate a self-restraint approach in which romantic interest is simply never expressed. Some – again, primarily men – focus on mitigating harms to the organization and initiator, advocating a professional boundaries approach in which romantic interest in a coworker is expressed outside of work. Interviewees focused on mitigating harms to the recipient – primarily women – advocated two contradictory strategies: the soft pursuit approach, in which romantic interest is expressed subtly and incrementally, and the clear declaration approach, in which romantic interest is expressed outright. The fragmented norms about how romantic interest in a coworker should be expressed offer insight into why people hold varying views about what makes sexual behavior in the workplace inappropriate, and thus, sexual harassment. This work has implications for scholarship about ambiguity in interaction, illustrating that in some contexts ambiguous behavior is morally contested.

Author

• Chloe Grace Hart, University of Wisconsin-Madison