How Hostile Environment Perceptions Imperil Academic Freedom: The Effects of Identity & Beliefs on Perceptions & Judgments

As part of his Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology course, the author engaged students in developing a survey about perceptions of hostile work environments and academic freedom. Students were interested in the extent to which identity and beliefs might predict perceptions and judgments. Survey respondents expressed their perceptions and judgments regarding 20 ecologically valid scenarios. The sample of 120 respondents was broadly representative of the Berea College campus community. Stepwise multiple regressions within a path analytic framework helped develop and refine a general predictive model. Gender and sexual orientation, and their interaction, predicted political identity. Political identity, an activist orientation, and explicit support for hostile environment protection were positively related and predicted over half the variance in respondents’ perception of environmental hostility. These ratings strongly predicted their subsequent judgments of academic freedom protection. Once respondents categorized a situation as being “a hostile environment,” they concluded it would not be protected by academic freedom. A respondent’s explicit academic freedom support added little to the prediction of one’s expressed willingness to protect academic freedom. Although academic freedom may be acknowledged as being important, in practice, the perception of environmental hostility diminishes support for academic freedom. These results have many educational and organizational implications