Men are more likely than women to blame victims of sexual harassment for their assault, research suggests.

Experts found in cases of ‘clear-cut’ sexual harassment that men are more likely than women to give the benefit of the doubt to the male perpetrator.

Men will more often believe allegations of sexual harassment, such as those brought forward in the wake of the Me Too movement, are down to a ‘misunderstanding’, that a female victim ‘provoked’ her abuser or that the woman has made the story up.

Men are more likely than women to blame victims of sexual harassment for their assault, research has suggested

The research, led by the University of Exeter, looked at the responses of 100 students asked to comment on a scenario in which a man harassed a female student over a prolonged period. The researchers, writing in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, said: ‘Accusations of... a man’s sexual harassment of a woman may pose a threat to men’s sense of their gender group as moral.

‘To reduce this threat, men may afford male perpetrators the benefit of the doubt and interpret events in a way that is biased towards that perpetrator’s perspective.

‘Men may believe, for example, that the male perpetrator did not mean to cause harm, that what occurred was based on a misunderstanding.’

The researchers, including experts from the University of Bath and the University of Queensland in Australia, said a fear of being victim blamed contributes to low rates of sexual harassment cases being brought forward. They said challenging the myth that women provoke harassment from men could help more victims to come forward.