As the list of alleged sexual harassers keeps getting longer and longer and the details keep getting more and more disturbing, there is one question that seems to have no answer: What makes these men behave this way? Part of the behavior can be chalked up to coarse behavior or outright misogyny, writes The Washington Post, but how much is the man, and how much is the culture surrounding the man? What is going through their heads when they make unwanted advances? Scientists and psychologists have puzzled over these questions for years. John Pryor is one of the early pioneers to study sexual harassment, and he invented a test to measure a man’s tendency to harass back in 1987. It has become a cornerstone for research today on sexual harassers. The test has allowed Pryor and others to identify these factors as the most “distinctive in harassers: a lack of empathy, a belief in traditional gender sex roles and a tendency toward dominance/authoritarianism.” Pryor also told The Washington Post that the environment surrounding such harassers has a huge effect. He said that “power makes you more impulsive” and makes you “less worried about social conventions and less concerned about the effect of your actions on others.”
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