Power Perception and Motivators with Effects of Social Dominance Orientation, Embodied Cognition and Need for Closure

Abstract

This study was conducted in order to see power perceptions and it is relationship with non-verbal behaviors. We tried to understand non-verbal behaviors that predicts power with gender differences, social dominance orientation, vertical/horizontal collectivism/individualism and need for closure. All of the scales were examined with questionnaires. Results showed that (a)participants who had high social dominance orientation found nonverbal behaviors that predicts power as less appropriate for females, (b) social dominance orientation was significantly correlated with vertical collectivism, ( c) individuals who were high on vertical individualism were also high on order, (d) individuals who were high on collectivism were also high on decisiveness.

Non-verbal Behaviors and Power Perception

Power is a part of our personality and our daily lives, but the perception of power and how it is perceived from the eyes of individuals is also as important as having power in life. Studies has been done to understand how people perceive power and how it is differs with different cultures, gender and other functions. As humans with different cultures we can divide even the same behaviors as positive or negative (Knapp & Hall, 2009). In addition we can predict that some behaviors represent power and some of them don’t. Studies showed that non-verbal behaviors such as gestures and body posture has an huge impact on peoples perception of power (Aguinis, Simonsen & Pierce, 1998). In order to understand this perception more clearly and how some behaviors shown as a sign of power in Turkey, we conduct a pre-test first.

Gender

Related with this findings, we expected to see gender differences among perception of power to see whether or not individuals find some power related behaviors appropriate towards only one gender in our Pre-test. According to an earlier study results showed that there is a difference between males and females on appropriateness of power related behaviors (Hall, LeBeau & Coats, 2005). Which means some non-verbal behaviors that shows power did not show the same appropriateness for both genders in the eyes of society.

In Turkey there has been lots of news about sexism such as sayings like woman should not laugh in a crowd etc. which creates this idea of having sexist behaviors towards woman in turkey. Turkish Statistical Institute found that female employment rate (%27.5) was less than half of male employment rate (%65) , taking employment as a sign of power we can conclude that females are not even close to the males in means of labor-force which will create the idea that females are less powerful than males . Sakalli and Beydogan (2002) found that how sexism and gender influence Turkish college students’ attitudes toward managers they found that male participants showed less positive attitude toward women managers than did female participants.

Moreover another study about attitudes towards woman managers in Turkey and Pakistan showed that women’s attitudes toward women managers in Turkey were more negative comparing to Pakistani woman also study indicated that Pakistani men showed more positive attitudes toward women managers than Turkish men (Güney, Gohar, K. Akıncı, & M. Akıncı, 2006). Since these studies shows that even woman can show sexist behaviors towards woman in this case managers which is again a powerful status related with that we hypothesized that both male and female participants will find non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as more appropriate for females.

Vertical/Horizontal Individualism/Collectivism

On the other hand power concepts can be shaped by vertical/horizontal individualism/collectivism (Shavitt & Cho, 2016). With thinking about this four concepts (vertical individualism, horizontal individualism, vertical collectivism, horizontal collectivism) and their emphasize on hierarchy can be parallel with the idea of power as well. Some societies are horizontal which means that they values equality and some societies are vertical which means emphasize the hierarchy.

In cultures which has horizontal individualism such as Norway, Australia they see themselves and others as equal in means of status, they focus on emphasizing independent self-construal, attitudes, and personal goals (Triandis & Singelis, 1998). Because of that since horizontal individualism believes in equality with out the need of standing out we hypothesized that people who are high on horizontal individualism will see non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as equal for males and females.

In cultures that has vertical individualism people mostly concerned about developing a better status and standing-out to be able to be different from others with power, competition. We hypothesized that since vertical individualism is more related with ambition and power people who are high on vertical individualism will see non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as less appropriate for females since specially males perceives powerful woman as threat.

Moreover in cultures that has horizontal collectivism people are mostly “perceiving the self as a part of the collective, but seeing all members of the collective as the same; thus equality is stressed.” (Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, & Gelfand, 1995). And in cultures that has vertical collectivism people are believe that there own individual status is effected by their in group’s and their family’s status. For people who were high on vertical collectivism we hypothesized that they will see non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as less appropriate for woman.

Social Dominance Orientation

Social dominance orientation (SDO) can be explained as a sign of individuals tendency to except rules of hierarchy and authority. SDO tries to understand the group based hierarchies that are present in our every day lives. Since those two concepts related with power, the correlation between SDO and power perception can be predicted. Additionally SDO can be explained as a trait to degree of which individuals prefers inequality among different social groups, seeking for hierarchy. Results from an earlier study showed that SDO was negatively correlates with empathy, tolerance and altruism and men are more are more social dominance oriented than woman (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). Similarly it was discovered that college men who were high on social dominance orientation showed less favorable attitudes towards woman as managers in both US and Kuwait which again shows the correlation between SDO and power perceptions (Simmons, Duffy, & Alfraih, 2012). Likewise organizations tends to pay and promote females less than males. (Lavelle, 2010). Which again shows the discrimination towards woman with the interaction of SDO. We hypothesized that male individuals who were more social dominance oriented will see non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as more inappropriate for females.

Need for Closure

Need for closure is a desire to know the answers without having any doubts, it is about avoiding the uncertainty and ambiguity with excepting only one answer that is available and taking it as an answer immediately without even considering other choices (Kruglasnki & Webster, 1996). Also NFC can be explained as a personality trait as well, like peoples need to make decision quickly without over thinking. It is defined as “individual’s desire for a firm answer to a question, any firm answer, as opposed to confusion and/or ambiguity” (Kruglanski 2004, p.6). It has been showed that individuals who were high in SDO had more bias on homosexuals (Licciardello, Castiglione, Rampullo, & Scolla, 2014) we can conclude that since NFC is about having clear cuts and does not like to think on other concepts and ideas it can be understandable for individuals who were high in NFC can hold more bias towards homosexuals cause it is triggers about thinking outside of the box and accepting other types. NFC can be the inhibition of cognition and not excepting any information or solution of others than their owns, people who has high NFC showed more tendency to adopt stereotypical judgments and less ability to accept diversity (Todor, 2014).

There is a perception of males being more powerful than females specially in the work settings, generally women found less influential about using dominant forms of communication than men (Carli, 2001) even from the old times as a perception of survival values, females takes care of the children, more emphatic and sweet while males has been associated with finding food, being strong and protective which is mostly the things that comes with power, this creates the schema about males being more powerful overall and still there is a greater gap between males and females in their employment rate. So we can say that individuals who were high on NFC can perceive power related nonverbal behaviors as more appropriate for men and less appropriate for women. Because thinking females as powerful is thinking outside of the box since the information about males being powerful is already available in the society, we expect that people who are high on need for closure will not feel the need of thinking females as powerful because it creates the ambiguity and violets the clear cut with taking another perspective than something they did already learn. We hypothesized that individuals who were high on NFC will find non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as less appropriate for females.

Method

Participants

There were one hundred seventeen participants. Most of the participants were students from MEF University participated voluntarily and they did not receive any credits from their participation. There were no participants from the Psychology department. There were 53 male and 61 female participant with age range of 18 to 53 (M=21.51, SD=4.89). There were 92 high school graduates, 17 university graduates and one master graduate student. Lastly since they were mostly students there was 25 participants who were currently working and 87 of them were not currently working.

Measures

Perception of power and nonverbal behavior scale. This scale is develop for pre-test which was parallel with the Hall, LeBeau, Coats’s (2005) study. This study showed that there is a relationship between 24 nonverbal behaviors like body posture, gestures and power perceptions. Participants were asked to rate 7-point Likert-type scale (1= strongly not powerful and 7= strongly powerful) to questions like “ How powerful is a person who smiles while speaking?” All of the 24 items were translated in Turkish since the questionnaires were given to Turkish participants.

Gender based perception of power and nonverbal behavior scale. Similar to pre-test items there were 42 items including nonverbal behaviors that was asked to understand the power perceptions and it is appropriateness for a man and woman. Every item was asked twice with division of male and female appropriateness such as “How appropriate for a male/female to have eye contact while speaking?” and it was rated in a 7-point Likert-type scale (1=Definitely not appropriate and 7=definitely appropriate). The reliability score of the scale was .57.

Social dominance orientation scale. This scale tries to understand individuals tendency of being high or low at social dominance, this scale develop by Pratto and colleagues (1994) and it was translated in to Turkish by Akbaş (2010). There were 16 statements e.g., “Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups” and there were reverse items e.g., “It would be good if groups could be equal”. Answers were given with a 7-point Likert-type scale (1=strongly disagree and 7=strongly agree). The reliability score of the original item was .83.

Vertical/horizontal collectivism/individualism scale. Scale was originally developed by Singelis (1995) in order to understand participants tendency of vertical individualism, horizontal individualism, vertical collectivism and horizontal collectivism with a 7-point Likert-type scale (1=strongly disagree and 7=strongly agree). There were 37 items. Reliability score for vertical individualism was .76, for horizontal individualism it was .21, for vertical collectivism it was .74 and for horizontal collectivism it was .74.

Need for Closure Scale. This scale is develop by Kruglanski, Atash, De Grada, Mannetti, and Pierro, (1997) and it has a questionnaire with 6-point Likert-type scale that includes 47 statements and has 5 subscales which was order, predictability, decisiveness, ambiguity and the closed-mindedness. Need for Closure Scale is trying to measure to what extent an individual which is faced with a decision or judgment trying to find only one answer rather than having confusion and ambiguity. This scale was translated to Turkish by Şeker and Akman (2015). The Turkish version of need for closure scale consists of 36 statements with 6-point Likert-type scale which was (1); strongly disagree (2); moderately disagree (3); slightly disagree (4); slightly agree (5); moderately agree (6); strongly agree .The first subscale of the need for closure scale was order, e.g,‘I find that a well ordered life with regular hours suits my temperament.’, the second one was predictability, e.g., When dining out, I like to go to places where I have been before so that I know what to expect.’, the third one was decisiveness, e.g., ‘I usually make important decisions quickly and confidently.’, the fourth one was ambiguity, e.g., ‘I don’t like situations that are uncertain.’ The fifth one was closed mindedness, e.g., ‘I dislike questions which could be answered in many different ways.’ reliability scores for subscales in the Turkish version was; .81 for order, .68 for ambiguity, .69 for decisiveness, .74 for predictability and .66 for closed mindedness.

Procedure

First participants read and sign the consent form then they had the pre-test. After the pre-test was over and analyzed and the power related non-verbal behaviors was discovered different participants were participated in the study. Participants who were included in the pre-test was not included in the study. After completing and reading the consent form, participants asked to complete the questionnaires with order gender based perception of power and non-verbal behaviors scale, social dominance orientation scale, vertical/horizontal collectivism/individualism scale and only seventeen of the participants also answered the need for closure scale. After answering the demographics as well and participants were asked to write about their suspicion about their study and their overall idea about what this study was trying to measure. After completing the questionnaire participants were informed about the study with debriefing form.

Results

Pre-test was conducted in order to understand the power perceptions, the analysis of experiment used the help from the pre-test results and took it as a baseline. Which means with the results of pre-test, the items that has means less than 3.50 labeled as low power behavior and 4.50 and above labeled as high power behavior. (see Fig. 1 for Perception of power and nonverbal behavior scale items).

Fig. 1 Perception of power and nonverbal behavior scale items

Bivariate correlation was conducted in order to understand the relationship between power perceptions and non-verbal behavior which included both appropriateness for male and female also social dominance orientation, vertical/horizontal individualism/collectivism and need for closure with five different subscales such as order, predictability, decisiveness, ambiguity and closed mindedness.

There was a significant negative correlation between appropriateness of power behaviors for females and social dominance orientation, r (106) = .212, p= .029 which means that participants who had high social dominance orientation found nonverbal behaviors that has perceived as powerful was less appropriate for females. Also, there was a significant relationship between appropriateness of power behavior for male and horizontal individualism r(113)=.243, p<.001, which means participants who scored higher on horizontal individualism perceived non-verbal behaviors for high power was more appropriate for males. Thus, social dominance orientation was significantly correlated with vertical collectivism r(105)=.502, p<.001 which means that participants who was high on social dominance orientation was also high on vertical individualism as well.

Horizontal collectivism and vertical collectivism was significantly positively correlated with each other r(105)=.422, p<.001 and this could be because of they were two types of collectivism which means the ones who were high on vertical collectivism were also high on horizontal collectivism. At the same time, vertical collectivism and vertical individualism was significantly correlated, r(109)=.262, p=.006, which means participants who were high on vertical collectivism were also high on vertical individualism.

Need for Closure

There was a significant correlation between vertical individualism and order which was the first subscale of need for closure scale r(17)=.562, p=.019.Which means individuals who were high on vertical individualism were also high on order. Also, there was a significant correlation between vertical collectivism and decisiveness r(17)=.532, p=.028. Which means that individuals who were high on collectivism were also high on decisiveness. The correlation between need for closure and social dominance orientation was not significant r(16)=.163, p=.546.

Gender

To see the effect of gender appropriateness of power behavior for male and female, social dominance orientation , vertical/horizontal individualism/collectivism and need for closure independent t-test was conducted. Results showed that there was a significant effect of gender appropriateness of power behavior for females t(110)=1.981, p=.050, which means that females rated behaviors that shows high power more appropriate for females (M= 5.37, SD = .65) than males (M= 5.15, SD=.53). There was a significant effect of gender on social dominance orientation, t(105)=-3.031, p=.003 also males had higher social dominance orientation (M=3.52, SD=1.34) than females (M=2.77, SD=1.23)

The effect of gender on horizontal collectivism was significant, t(104)=2.826, p=.006, which means that females showed more horizontal collectivism (M=5.54, SD=.73) compare to males (M=5.10, SD=.88). However, the effect of gender on vertical individualism was significantly showed that males were showed more vertical individualism (M=4.81, SD=.93) compare to females (M=4.19, SD=1.27), t(105.768)=-2.953, p=.004.

Discussion

In this study our first hypothesis was that both male and female participants will find non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as more appropriate for females. From the study of Hall et al. (2015) we had a scale that has questions to measure the relationship between non-verbal behaviors that predicts power according to the different genders and its appropriateness for both. The earlier study (Hall et al.,2015) showed that people who showed non-verbal behaviors such as bodily openness, louder voice, interruptions while speaking, less local variability perceived as more powerful for males while non-verbal behaviors such as facial expressiveness, small distance, better encoding skills perceived as more powerful for females. In our recent study we remove some of the non verbal behaviors according to our pre-test results and with the questions that are left we created another scale this time with gender differences which in this case appropriateness for both male and female. For the results of the pre-test there was not a huge difference between our recent study and Hall et al. which means in different countries, this case Turkey has similar results which suggest there is no cross-cultural difference. The cross-cultural differences can be see in other non-verbal behaviors that predicts power such as nodding, voice pitch, raised eyebrows , laugh, smile and back channel response since not every culture has the same values for the same behavior.

Our second hypothesis was people who were high on vertical collectivism and individualism will find non verbal behaviors that predicts power as less appropriate for females. The second hypothesis was not supported by results. Results showed that people with horizontal individualism had this tendency to perceive non verbal behaviors that predicts power as more appropriate for males which is pretty interesting.

Also since social dominance orientation and vertical individualism has things in common such as people tried to develop a better status with standing out and showing their differences with power and competition in this case taking this definition of vertical individualism and combining it with the main idea of SDO maybe individuals who wants to achieve a better status with power believes that in order to achieve a better status sometimes you should discriminate other groups and minorities. Looking from this perspective our results suggested that social dominance orientation and vertical individualism had a correlation. But our hypothesis about people who were high on vertical individualism will find non verbal behaviors that predicts power as less appropriate for females was not supported with our results.

Moreover focusing on our hypothesis about social dominance orientation we hypothesized that males who were high on social dominance orientation will perceive non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as less appropriate for females. Overall the results supported that hypothesis. Like it has ben claimed social dominance orientation is taking into account as a trait, moreover it can create a different mind-set and change individuals perceptions about power. Since earlier studies already showed that individuals who were more social dominance oriented showed less favorable attitudes towards females (Simmons, Duffy, & Alfraih, 2012) our results can correlate this as well. Social dominance orientation creates the idea about the other groups should know there place and the distinction should be clear and this will be beneficial, in this case this groups are specially the minorities and since in some cultures females still counts as minorities, the results of our study can be an example of this.

Likewise, we found that males have higher SDO levels than females. History shows and teaches that males are the ones with high power also social dominance orientation mostly benefits the powerful ones with stepping on the minorities so it is easier to see male individuals who were high in SDO rather than females.

Our last hypothesis was that individuals who are high on need for closure will find non-verbal behaviors that predicts power as less appropriate for females. However our hypothesis was not supported with our results which is somehow surprising because we will expect that need for closure and power specially with the gender differences can lead to results that we predicted. The reason behind it can be there we only seventeen individuals who only completed the test and the sample size was not enough to support our hypothesis. Maybe in further researches with a bigger sample we can find more accurate results to support our hypothesis.

In addition, results suggested that there was a significant correlation between vertical individualism and the first subscale of our need for closure scale which was order. This can be due to the similarity of this two concepts, need for closure overall about not liking ambiguity and having clear cuts which in this case the component order mostly focuses on having a life with order, finding clear rules as more appropriate and beneficial and getting pleasure from everything being in place and being in order, on the other what vertical individualism focuses on was pretty much similar such as the vertical side emphasizing the hierarch which is again a clear cut and sign of order. Also, results showed that there was a significant correlation between vertical collectivism and decisiveness which was the third subscale of need for closure. The component decisiveness focuses on the beliefs and behaviors that individuals hold about not liking the ambiguous conversations, questions with no answer or more than one answer and not liking people that are unstable, on the other hand vertical collectivism focuses on this interdependent self-construals also has this tendency to emphasize competition with out-groups. Related with this results people who were high on vertical collectivism are more likely to compete with out-groups in this case not liking people that are unstable can be a reflection of danger as well, since they are already triggered for out-groups any ambiguity and unstableness can be dangerous which supports the correlation.

Limitations

The sample size can be larger for this kind of a social study, it was focusing on the social problems and inequity so even with a close equal gender distribution, the age and education was not equally distributed which can be another limitation of this study. With a larger sample size in future our hypothesis can be proven. Also the we asked participants about their suspicion in order to understand whether they understand the purpose of the study, there data was not excluded and for the gender based non verbal behavior that predicts power there can be social desirability answers as well since the questions were ordered with same behaviors one for male then for female. This can be also another limitation since it makes participants to think that we are working on gender issues as well.

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Table 1. Bivariate Correlations, Means and Standard Deviations of All Variables