The Source of Power Matters: Positional Power as a Better Predictor of Sexual Interest Perceptions than Dispositional Power Among Men within a Military Context
PSPE
- Goh, Pei Hwa Department of Psychology, Monash University—Malaysia Campus, Bandar Sunway, Subang Jaya, Selangor,
- Stoeckli, Peter Lucas Department of Military Psychology and Pedagogy, Military Academy at ETH Zurich, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- Schoebi, Dominik ORCID Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
- Annen, Hubert Department of Military Psychology and Pedagogy, Military Academy at ETH Zurich, Birmensdorf, Switzerland
- 2022
Published in:
- Archives of Sexual Behavior. - Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2022, vol. 51, no. 3, p. 1531-1539
English
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.
- Faculty
- Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines
- Department
- Département de Psychologie
- Language
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- English
- License
-
CC BY
- Open access status
- hybrid
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.1007/s10508-021-02255-7
- ISSN 0004-0002
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/336381
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