Perceptions of power and interactional dominance in interpersonal relationships

Abstract

This investigation uses dyadic power theory (Dunbar, 2000, 2004; Rollins & Bahr, 1976) to examine the relationship between dominance and power and the behavioral manifestations of power in close relationships. Ninety-seven couples (58 married, 39 cohabiting) completed a problem-solving task together while being videotaped. The videotapes were coded for a variety of verbal and nonverbal dominant control attempts including dysfluencies, interruptions, frequency of adaptor and illustrator gestures, vocal characteristics, and general perceptions of dominance. The results revealed that individuals’ perceptions of power led to more dominant communication behavior during discussions with their partner. Comparisons between the perceptions of participants and observers and the implications for future research are also discussed.

A influência da procrastinação no desempenho acadêmico e o papel moderador do senso de poder pessoal

“…Poder social é a capacidade de produzir efeitos intencionais e, em particular, a habilidade de influenciar o comportamento de outra pessoa (Dunbar, 2000;Dunbar & Burgoon, 2005). Para Kraus, Chen e Keltner (2011), um indivíduo com poder social elevado pode ter o controle sobre o resultado de outros e aumentar a própria liberdade para tomar decisões de acordo com suas metas e motivações.…”

A Review of Theoretical Approaches to Interpersonal Power

“…51 The results suggest that having greater power does improve the quality of alternatives available and reduce commitment, as the principle of least interest would suggest, but also decreases satisfaction with the relationship. 52 Previous studies have found that equitable relationships are the most desirable 53 which is why Dunbar and Burgoon 54 speculated that the majority of their sample of married and cohabiting couples preferred characterizing their relationship as equal rather than unequal in power despite the differences in dominance behavior exhibited. Generally, the investment model has proved to be a useful tool for examining power relationships as they affect the stability and commitment of close relationships.…”

Emergent leaders through looking and speaking: from audio-visual data to multimodal recognition

“…However, research shows that the perception of the participants themselves and external observers differ (Dunbar and Burgoon, 2005). To be able to evaluate these differences, we also collected judgments from external observers for two of the variables, leadership and dominance.…”