Essential psychology when investigating workplace or campus sexual harassment

Investigating a complaint of sexual harassment can feel like a high-stakes situation for everyone involved: the complainant, the respondent, the organisation, and the team tasked with carrying out an investigation and arriving at a decision about this case. Everyone involved wants to feel confident about the process. Everyone wants a careful and robust investigation and a decision that is based on solid ground.

Understanding the psychology involved in these cases is going to help give you and your processes that solid ground.

Very often these cases rest on testimony and boil down to one person's word against another's, with little in the way of corroborating evidence. Sometimes it can feel that this gives you very little to work with in terms of understanding the evidence.

Unless... you understand the psychology. Harassment is always an interaction between people and often happens in some form of relationship. The key ingredient is a…