Dominance-seeking workers see more sexual interest in coworkers’ behavior, and that may help explain harassment

Two survey studies found that employees with a strong desire to assert dominance were more likely to read sexual interest into the friendly behavior of a coworker of another gender. People who perceived more sexual interest, in turn, reported engaging in more workplace sexual harassment, particularly men. The paper was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

People often have to interpret whether another person’s friendly behavior reflects simple politeness or romantic and sexual interest. These judgments are not always accurate, and neutral behaviors such as smiling or making small talk can sometimes be misread as signs of sexual attraction. Such misperceptions can create serious problems in the workplace, where professional interactions are shaped not only by attraction but also by status, hierarchy, and power.

Research suggests that men are, on average, more likely than women to perceive sexual interest in ambiguous social behavior, although both sexes can make such errors. In organizational settings, however, individual differences in the desire for social dominance may be especially important. People high in dominance motivation tend to seek status through forceful, controlling, or coercive behavior, whereas prestige-oriented individuals try to gain respect through competence, knowledge, and generosity.

Dominance may therefore make some employees more likely to interpret coworkers’ behavior through a sexualized lens and to assume sexual interest where none was intended. These perceptions may in turn make inappropriate advances seem justified to the person making them and increase the risk of workplace sexual harassment.

Study authors Sanne Feenstra of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Mark van Vugt note that previous research suggests that perceptions of sexual intent can act as triggers for sexual harassment because they shape how people interpret social cues. People who perceive heightened sexual interest may not see their own behavior as harassment, but rather as an appropriate response to the presumed interest of the other person.

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The researchers also argued that heightened perceptions of sexual intent might lead dominance-motivated individuals to misread signs of non-consent as “token resistance,” resulting in continued unwanted advances. They conducted two studies to test these ideas.

The first study included 209 employed adults in the United Kingdom recruited through Prolific Academic, who completed two surveys one week apart. Their average age was 38, half were women, and all were heterosexual, because the study’s design involved rating the behavior of someone of another gender.

In the first survey, participants completed measures of dominance motivation (e.g., “I enjoy having control over others”) and prestige motivation (e.g., “My colleagues respect and admire me”), along with sociosexual orientation (openness to and comfort with uncommitted sexual relationships), their formal power at work, and their gender. In the second survey, they read descriptions of seven behaviors by a coworker of another gender, such as smiling brightly and striking up a friendly conversation on the first day of work, and rated how much each indicated sexual interest. Women rated a male colleague’s behavior toward a woman, and men rated a female colleague’s behavior toward a man.

The second study included 345 employed adults in the U.K., also recruited through Prolific Academic. Their average age was 40, and 48% were women. They completed three surveys one week apart: the first two used the same measures as Study 1, and the third asked about general workplace misconduct over the past year and sexual harassment over the past three months.

The harassment measure asked how often participants had engaged in six behaviors toward a colleague of another gender, such as asking intimate questions about their sex life. Reported harassment was rare, with average scores close to the “never” end of the scale.

In the first study, participants with stronger dominance motivation tended to perceive more sexual interest in their coworker’s behavior, regardless of their gender, formal power, or openness to casual sex. Prestige motivation was not linked to these perceptions. Women tended to perceive more sexual interest in men’s behavior than men did in women’s behavior, which the authors say likely reflects women’s expectations about men’s sexual interest rather than a contradiction of earlier research, since the study did not measure whether perceptions were accurate.

The second study replicated these findings. In addition, participants who perceived more sexual interest in coworkers’ behavior reported engaging in more sexual harassment, and these perceptions helped account for the link between dominance motivation and harassment. In analyses that were not planned in advance, this pattern held only for men: among women, perceiving sexual interest was not associated with harassment.

Perceptions of sexual interest were not related to general workplace misconduct, suggesting that the process is specific to sexual harassment rather than to bad behavior at work more broadly. Participants who reported more harassment were also slightly more likely to be men, to be more open to casual sex, and to report more general misconduct.

“Our findings highlight a psychological process linking dominance motivation to workplace sexual harassment and offer insights to diminish such harassment,” the study authors concluded. They suggest that organizations could place less weight on dominance-oriented traits when hiring and promoting employees and reward cooperation and respect instead.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of potential psychological mechanisms behind workplace sexual harassment. However, it should be noted that although the measures were collected at different times, the design of this study does not allow causal inferences to be derived from the results. The associations were also modest: dominance motivation accounted for a small share of the differences in sexual intent perceptions, and the link between those perceptions and self-reported harassment was weak.

All data were self-reported, so participants may have underreported harassment, and the harassment measure had low reliability. Participants rated descriptions of behavior rather than interactions with actual coworkers, and the study did not assess whether their perceptions were accurate. Both samples consisted of heterosexual adults in the U.K., so the findings may not extend to other countries, workplaces, or same-gender interactions.

The paper, “From Dominance to Harassment: The Hidden Role of Sexual Intent Perceptions in the Workplace,” was authored by Sanne Feenstra and Mark van Vugt.