Good Times, Bad Times: How Personal Disadvantage Moderates the Relationship Between Social Dominance and Efforts to Win

Abstract

Recent work has linked social dominance orientation (SDO) to ruthless, uncaring individuals who see the world as a competitive jungle. This need to “rule the jungle,” then, should become activated when high SDOs are in positions that threaten their chances of victory. In Study 1, the authors manipulated advantage and disadvantage in the form of resources; in an ensuing task, they observed higher levels of greed only among disadvantaged high SDOs. In Study 2, high SDOs with less opportunity to compete relative to others evidenced significantly more extra-effort to win, even though their effort broke the rules. In Study 3, the authors replicated this effect and demonstrated that extra-effort predicted increased beliefs in actual performance, which in turn predicted decisions to argue for a higher score. In sum, the results provide support for the notion of SDO reflecting underlying needs to compete and win at all costs.