Abstract
The current research examined the roles of positional power induced by one’s hierarchical position in an organization and dispositional power (i.e., one’s general feeling of power) in the perception of sexual interest in a military context. In two vignette-based experiments with men who were military members, positional power induced by military rank led to heightened sexual perceptions. Men estimated higher sexual interest from their interaction partner when interacting with a hypothetical woman of a lower military rank, compared to a woman of equal (Experiment 1; N = 144) or higher military rank (Experiment 2; N = 232). Being in a relatively higher rank induces feelings of power over the interaction partner and thus results in a higher perception of sexual interest. Furthermore, Experiment 2 revealed that positional power better predicted heightened perceived sexual interest than dispositional power.
Highlights
Is this person sexually interested in me or not? Finding the correct answer to this question is crucial, given the possibility that misperceiving sexual interest could result in unwanted sexual misbehaviors such as sexual harassment (e.g., Gruenfeld et al, 2008)
In the current work (Experiment 2), we examined whether the effect of positional power on sexual perception is qualified or amplified by one’s dispositional sense of power in a military context
Participants who felt that they generally possessed a great deal of power in their social relationships (β = 0.26) and those who imagined interacting with a woman of a lower military rank (β = 0.20) reported higher momentary feelings of power over the interaction partner compared to those who felt less in power in daily life and those who imagined interacting with a woman of a higher military rank
Summary
Is this person sexually interested in me or not? Finding the correct answer to this question is crucial, given the possibility that misperceiving sexual interest could result in unwanted sexual misbehaviors such as sexual harassment (e.g., Gruenfeld et al, 2008). Despite evidence suggesting that perpetrators in 67% of sexual harassment cases in the U.S military were military personnel of a higher rank (Morral et al, 2015), which suggest that people in power may be prone to sexual misperception in workplace settings, existing findings (Kunstman & Maner, 2011) have been derived from university student samples who underwent social power manipulations. Extant research has highlighted the importance of the role of one’s dispositional level of power or one’s general sense of power across situations and relationships (Anderson et al, 2012) as a moderator of the positional power effect (Galinsky et al, 2015). We hypothesized that military members who held positional power would perceive higher sexual interest from an interaction partner of the other sex compared to those who lack positional power
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