Chapter 34 Exercises: Attraction in the Workplace

Exercise 34.1 — Policy Analysis

Individual or group activity | 30–45 minutes

Select two organizations from the following categories — one large (Fortune 500 company, major university, large hospital) and one small (a startup, a small law firm, a local business) — and research their publicly available workplace romance or conflict-of-interest policies.

For each organization, address:

  1. Does the policy prohibit any workplace relationships, or does it merely require disclosure?
  2. If disclosure is required, to whom? What happens after disclosure?
  3. Does the policy distinguish between hierarchical and peer relationships?
  4. What are the stated consequences for policy violations?
  5. How does the size and type of organization shape what policy is feasible?

Written response (500–700 words): Compare the two policies using the analytical framework from the chapter. Which policy better addresses the coercive context problem? Which is more feasible to actually implement? What are the tradeoffs?

Exercise 34.2 — Ethical Reasoning Practice

Individual writing | 20–30 minutes

Read the following three scenarios. For each one, apply the ethical framework from Section 34.12 — assessing the power differential, the possibility of genuine consent, the institutional policy implications, and the obligations of the more powerful party. Do not simply say whether the relationship is "okay" or "not okay"; analyze the relevant considerations.

Scenario A: A 34-year-old marketing director develops feelings for a 28-year-old graphic designer on her team. She is his direct supervisor and writes his performance reviews. Both are single. She is considering mentioning her feelings informally.

Scenario B: Two graduate students in the same PhD program develop a romantic relationship. One of them is a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course; the other is enrolled in a different undergraduate course taught by a different TA. Neither has any formal authority over the other.

Scenario C: A 45-year-old tenured professor and a 30-year-old adjunct instructor in the same department begin a relationship. The professor sits on the department's hiring committee, which makes decisions about adjunct contract renewals. Neither supervises the other directly.

Written response: Approximately 150 words per scenario. Conclude with a brief reflection (100 words) on which case you found most analytically difficult and why.

Exercise 34.3 — Cross-Cultural Case Study

Group discussion | 30 minutes

The Okafor-Reyes findings document that French, American, and Japanese workers operate under different "attraction acknowledgment norms." Reyes cautioned against treating any one pattern as simply superior.

Discuss in small groups:

  1. What features of the French pattern could be said to support consent norms? What would need to be true about the surrounding social context for those features to operate as intended?
  2. The Japanese pattern, Okafor argues, shows that discretion norms do not eliminate unwanted attention — they eliminate the social permission to name it. What organizational interventions might address the gap between the surface norm of discretion and the actual experience of unwanted attention?
  3. Is it possible to design a workplace attraction policy that travels across these three cultural contexts? What would you have to build in to make it work?

Exercise 34.4 — Identifying Boundary Testing Behavior

Individual reflection | 15 minutes

Section 34.9 describes the "boundary testing" pathway to harassment. Without identifying specific individuals, reflect on an experience — your own or one you have observed — where a workplace (or campus, or organizational) interaction felt ambiguous in the specific way described: where you were unsure whether to interpret behavior as innocent or as a probe of receptivity.

  1. What made the behavior ambiguous?
  2. What interpretive options did you (or the person you observed) have? What were the costs and risks attached to each option?
  3. Looking back, how would you classify the behavior now?
  4. What organizational or social infrastructure, if it had existed, might have made the situation easier to navigate?

This exercise is not shared publicly. Write for yourself. It is intended to help you recognize the dynamics described in the chapter in concrete terms rather than purely abstract ones.

Exercise 34.5 — The Science-Policy Interface

Written reflection or seminar discussion | 20–30 minutes

Okafor and Reyes wrote that "the relationship between scientific description and normative evaluation is not automatic." This is the science-policy interface problem: what a study says and what policy should say are different questions, even when the study is directly relevant.

  1. Find a real news headline or social media post that misrepresents a psychological or sociological study about relationships, attraction, or harassment. Describe the misrepresentation.
  2. Using the Okafor-Reyes controversy as a model, explain what the correct relationship between the study's findings and the policy argument would be.
  3. Why is it in the interests of advocates on both sides of policy debates to misrepresent research findings? What would better science communication look like?

Written response: 300–500 words.

Exercise 34.6 — Intersectionality Mapping

Group activity | 20–25 minutes

Using the intersectionality analysis from Section 34.11b, create a diagram or matrix mapping how the following factors interact to affect a worker's practical ability to refuse unwanted workplace attention and to report harassment if it occurs:

  • Formal organizational power (supervisor vs. peer vs. subordinate)
  • Employment type (full-time permanent vs. contractor vs. part-time)
  • Gender
  • Race/ethnicity
  • Sexual orientation (in non-affirming environments)
  • Industry (office professional vs. service/hospitality vs. domestic work)

For each intersection you identify, write one or two sentences describing how the intersection affects the risk profile or the practical power dynamics. Identify the two or three combinations of factors that, based on the research, produce the highest vulnerability to harassment and the lowest institutional protection.