Topic Change and the Work Environment

Introduction

The primary challenge of harassment law is to define when speech or behavior becomes so severe and prevalent that it creates a hostile environment for the target. In general, when determining the existence of a hostile work environment, the court considers whether speech or behavior is appropriate in a workplace that strives to provide a pleasant, productive atmosphere for all employees (Bradbury, 10).

Most antidiscrimination laws, such as Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and various state and local laws, do not explicitly discuss harassment. These laws prohibit discrimination in the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment; however, the courts have interpreted these definitions to bar not only discrimination as it is traditionally understood but also harassment that may create a hostile work environment.

Discussion

On its face, harassment law draws no distinction between slurs, pornography, political, religious, or social commentary, jokes, art, other forms of speech, and unwanted physical contact. All can be punished, so long as they are severe or pervasive enough to create an intolerable environment for a reasonable person. The vagueness of the terms severe and pervasive and the fact that the law is implemented by employers who have an incentive to be more rather than less cautious, means that the law may practically restrict any speech or behavior that an employer concludes may be found by the courts to be severe or pervasive enough (Bune, 20).

Ultimately, the crux of any person-environment fit model is how well it predicts relevant outcomes. This prediction is influenced by a number of factors: the assessment of the person, the assessment of the environment, the assessment of the outcome, how fit between person and environment is operationalised, and how fit is related (in a predictive manner) to outcome. In vocational psychology models of person-environment fit, the assessment of the individual is generally well validated. As discussed above, the best method for assessment of the environment is not agreed upon. In vocational psychology, the outcome frequently measured is job satisfaction. When assessing global job satisfaction, this construct is robust enough that a single item is often used. However, it has been argued that job satisfaction is more meaningfully discussed in terms of its two facets—intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. Depending upon the specifics of a given person-environment fit model, different fit indices may be possible and/or desirable. For example, fit indices for Holland's theory of vocational personalities and work environments frequently factor in the hexagonal arrangement of the types. In addition, these indices typically weight for the relative importance of first, second, or third highest Holland types. In contrast, many of the fit indices proposed for use with the theory of work adjustment face problems classic to the quantitative comparison of psychological profiles. For example, difference scores, although simple to calculate, seldom can meet the measurement assumptions inherent in their use and perhaps more to the point tend not to perform any better than fit indices making less rigorous assumptions—that is, a correlation ...