The Impact of Cooperative and Competitive Instructions on the Performance of Friendly and Hostile Complementary Mixed-Sex Dyads

Abstract

Using a circumplex model of interpersonal acts, Estroff and Nowicki (1992) had found that mixed-sex hostile complementary dyads with a man dominant and a woman submissive put fewer pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together than did any other complementary pairings. In the present investigation, three studies were completed to examine the hypothesis that the performance of mixed-sex complementary dyads with a man dominant and a woman submissive is negatively impacted when hostile pairings are asked to cooperate and friendly ones are asked to compete. Results were consistent with this hypothesis.