Dominance and heterosexual attraction.

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Abstract
Four experiments examined the relation between behavioral expressions of dominance and the het- erosexual attractiveness of males and females. Predictions concerning the relation between domi- nance and heterosexual attraction were derived from a consideration of sex role norms and from the comparative biological literature. All four experiments indicated an interaction between dominance and sex of target. Dominance behavior increased the attractiveness of males, but had no effect on the attractiveness of females. The third study indicated that the effect did not depend on the sex of the rater or on the sex of those with whom the dominant target interacted. The fourth study showed that the effect was specific to dominance as an independent variable and did not occur for related constructs (aggressive or domineering). This study also found that manipulated dominance en- hanced only a male's sexual attractiveness and not his general Usability. The results were discussed in terms of potential biological and cultural causal mechanisms. Concepts that refer to an individual's relative position in a social hierarchy occupy prominent positions in current models of personality and social behavior (Edelmarv & Omark, 1973; Hogan, 1979,1982;Strayer&Strayer, 1976). It has been argued that terms such as dominance, status, position, ascendance, or surgency refer to universal features of human interaction. Ho- gan (1979), for example, suggests, "every primate and human group of modest complexity is organized in terms of a status hierarchy. Each member of the group knows who is most domi- nant or has the highest status, who is lowest, and where he or she stands in the hierarchy." White (1980) has recently gathered cross-cultural linguistic data that bear on the universality of sta- tus hierarchies; his analysis of personality descriptions in different language groups indicates that dominance-submis- sion is a universal lexical feature of human languages. The research reported here concerns the relation between be- havioral expressions of dominance and the sexual attractiveness of males and females. Specific relations between dominance and attraction are predicted both by sociobiological theories that emphasize evolutionarily determined behavior tendencies and by scciocultural theories that emphasize socialization practices and sex role expectations.

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