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Social dominance and interpersonal power: Asymmetrical relationships within hierarchy‐enhancing and hierarchy‐attenuating work environments
Author(s) -
Aiello Antonio,
Tesi Alessio,
Pratto Felicia,
Pierro Antonio
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/jasp.12488
Subject(s) - hierarchy , dominance (genetics) , dominance hierarchy , social dominance orientation , social psychology , psychology , power (physics) , social hierarchy , interpersonal communication , political science , aggression , biochemistry , chemistry , physics , authoritarianism , quantum mechanics , politics , law , democracy , gene
We studied whether high‐social dominant employees sustain hierarchies in different hierarchy‐enhancing and hierarchy‐attenuating organizations endorsing harsh and soft power tactics. We found that social dominance orientation was positively associated with harsh power tactics, and negatively associated with soft power tactics. Employees higher in social dominance orientation endorsed harsh and opposed to soft power tactics as respectively hierarchy‐enhancing and hierarchy‐attenuating legitimizing myths that promote a dominant‐submissive form of intergroup relationships. We also found that supervisors higher in social dominance, due to their dominant position, strongly opposed soft power tactics more than subordinates did. Amongst high‐social dominant employees in the hierarchy‐attenuating (vs. hierarchy‐enhancing) organization, we observed the strongest opposition to soft power tactics, which are the tactics most shared in an organization which tends to attenuate hierarchies.