Performance‐self‐esteem and dominance behavior in mixed‐sex dyads¹

Abstract

A bstract Past studies suggest that males tend to be more dominant than females in task‐oriented, mixed‐sex groups. It was hypothesized that one factor accounting for this sex difference is performance‐self‐esteem. Subjects were 44 male‐female pairs (college undergraduates) who participated in a decision‐making task. As predicted, female performance‐self‐esteem level was related to the dominance cluster of opinions, disagreements, and decision outcome scores ( p < .035). Females were more dominant and males less dominant in dyads containing high performance‐self‐esteem females; the reverse was true in dyads containing low performance‐self‐esteem females. No relationship was found between male performance‐self‐esteem level and dominance. Also, with performance‐self‐esteem level controlled, no overall sex difference in dominance occurred. However, some sex differences were found in the relationships between outcome satisfaction and dominance for high and low performance‐self‐esteem subjects.