Background

This is a preregistered replication of RECD: March 2024d.

Preregistration

Hypotheses

  1. Competitive worldview will be positively associated with perceived relational benefit from managers’ dominant behaviors (i.e., those higher in competitive worldview will perceive fewer relational costs to dominant behaviors).

  2. Competitive worldview will be positively associated with self-reported hypothetical dominant behavior as a manager.

  3. The relationship between competitive worldview and self-reported hypothetical dominant behavior as a manager will be at least partially explained by perceived relational benefit from dominant behaviors.

Design

In a correlational design, participants will: (1) complete a measure of competitive worldview; and (2) answer questions about an instance of dominant behavior.

In the former, they will read one of 23 descriptions of dominant behaviors. We previously asked part- or full-time employees to describe a time in which their manager behaved dominantly towards them in an attempt to get them to do something at work. Our criteria for these descriptions were: (1) that they describe a specific incident (rather than overall demeanor); (2) that the behavior was intended to get them to comply with something; and (3) that the behavior was dominant. See Materials file for all descriptions.

Participants of the current study will estimate the impact of this behavior on the relationship between the employee and the manager, the employee’s compliance with the request, and the employee’s desire to quit or exit the relationship in any way. They will also be asked to indicate the likelihood that they would behave like the manager did in the description, if they were the manager trying to get their employee complete the task at hand.

Analysis plan

  1. Fixed Effects Model #1: Perceived relational benefit as the outcome variable; competitive worldview as predictor; original description as fixed effect; race, gender, income, education, and age as control variables.

  2. Fixed Effects Model #2: Intentions of dominant behavior as outcome variable; competitive worldview as predictor; original description as fixed effect; race, gender, income, education, and age as control variables.

  3. Fixed Effects Mediation Model: Intentions of dominant behavior as outcome variable; perceived relational benefit as mediator; competitive worldview as predictor; original description as fixed effect; race, gender, income, education, and age as control variables.

Attention checks

There was an attention check. Just asking participants to select a certain point on the scale.

att_1 n
0 5
1 296

Great. 296 eligible.

Demographics

Race

race N Perc
asian 32 10.81
black 24 8.11
hispanic 19 6.42
multiracial 17 5.74
white 197 66.55
NA 7 2.36

Gender

gender N Perc
man 160 54.05
woman 133 44.93
NA 3 1.01

Age

age_mean age_sd
37.48288 11.05172

Education

edu N Perc
GED 63 21.28
2yearColl 26 8.78
4yearColl 149 50.34
MA 46 15.54
PHD 12 4.05

Income

Employment

employment N Perc
Full-time 215 72.64
Full-time, Student 1 0.34
Full-time, Temporarily laid off 1 0.34
Homemaker 3 1.01
Other 1 0.34
Part-time 64 21.62
Part-time, Other 1 0.34
Part-time, Student 2 0.68
Retired 1 0.34
Student 2 0.68
Unemployed 5 1.69

add binary column for those who are not full-time or part-time employees. I can run the analyses with and without them. Saying this because I realize I didn’t preregister this as exclusion criteria.

Measures

Competitive Worldview

1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree

1. It’s a dog-eat-dog world where you have to be ruthless at times
2. Life is not governed by the “survival of the fittest.” We should let compassion and moral laws be our guide [R]
3. There is really no such thing as “right” and “wrong.” It all boils down to what you can get away with
4. One of the most useful skills a person should develop is how to look someone straight in the eye and lie convincingly
5. It is better to be loved than to be feared [R]
6. My knowledge and experience tell me that the social world we live in is basically a competitive “jungle” in which the fittest survive and succeed, in which power, wealth, and winning are everything, and might is right
7. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and never do anything unfair to someone else [R]
8. Basically people are objects to be quietly and coolly manipulated for one’s own benefit
9. Honesty is the best policy in all cases [R]
10. One should give others the benefit of the doubt. Most people are trustworthy if you have faith in them [R]

Cronbach’s alpha = 0.81

Relational impact

In your opinion, what was the impact of this incident on the employee’s relationship with this manager? (1 = It had a strong negative effect on their relationship with their manager to 7 = It had a strong positive effect on their relationship with their manager)

Compliance impact

In your opinion, to what extent did the employee comply with what the manager was seeking or requesting? (1 = They did not comply at all with what the manager was seeking to 7 = They completely complied with what the manager was seeking)

Exiting impact

In your opinion, what was the impact of this incident on the employee’s intentions to leave this manager or job (such as quitting or transferring)? (1 = It greatly decreased their intentions to leave their manager to 7 = It greatly increased their intentions to leave their manager)

Own behavior

If you were a manager in this kind of situation, how likely would you be to act in the way the manager did, as described earlier? (1 = Not at All Likely to 5 = Extremely Likely)

Correlations

Analysis Plan

Fixed effects model 1

Perceived relational benefit as the outcome variable; competitive worldview as predictor; original description as fixed effect; race, gender, income, education, and age as control variables.

(#tab:unnamed-chunk-17)
Term \(\hat{\beta}\) 95% CI \(t\) \(\mathit{df}\) \(p\)
Intercept 1.70 [1.01, 2.39] 4.83 274.62 < .001
CWV 0.08 [-0.05, 0.20] 1.21 272.18 .227
Age 0.00 [-0.01, 0.01] 0.09 267.59 .928
Race white -0.03 [-0.27, 0.21] -0.23 270.69 .819
As numericedu 0.01 [-0.10, 0.12] 0.18 268.84 .860
As numericincome -0.05 [-0.09, -0.01] -2.22 266.83 .028


without controls:

Table: (#tab:unnamed-chunk-18)

Term \(\hat{\beta}\) 95% CI \(t\) \(\mathit{df}\) \(p\)
Intercept 1.48 [1.10, 1.86] 7.62 207.37 < .001
CWV 0.08 [-0.04, 0.20] 1.35 288.34 .177

oh boy.

Fixed effects model 2

Intentions of dominant behavior as outcome variable; competitive worldview as predictor; original description as fixed effect; race, gender, income, education, and age as control variables.

(#tab:unnamed-chunk-19)
Term \(\hat{\beta}\) 95% CI \(t\) \(\mathit{df}\) \(p\)
Intercept 1.13 [0.41, 1.84] 3.10 274.31 .002
CWV 0.19 [0.06, 0.32] 2.95 270.48 .003
Age 0.00 [-0.01, 0.01] -0.36 266.29 .720
Race white 0.21 [-0.03, 0.45] 1.68 268.94 .094
As numericedu 0.00 [-0.11, 0.11] -0.03 267.27 .978
As numericincome -0.04 [-0.08, 0.01] -1.64 265.60 .102

hmm.

Exploratory Analysis

Fixed Effects Model

Perceived compliance as the outcome variable; competitive worldview as predictor; original description as fixed effect; race, gender, income, education, and age as control variables.

(#tab:unnamed-chunk-20)
Term \(\hat{\beta}\) 95% CI \(t\) \(\mathit{df}\) \(p\)
Intercept 5.20 [3.72, 6.67] 6.89 266.14 < .001
CWV -0.27 [-0.53, -0.01] -2.06 263.68 .040
Age 0.00 [-0.02, 0.02] 0.13 260.42 .900
Race white 0.09 [-0.41, 0.58] 0.34 262.23 .731
As numericedu -0.11 [-0.33, 0.11] -0.96 260.97 .337
As numericincome -0.02 [-0.11, 0.07] -0.52 259.88 .604

oh no.

Fixed Effects Model

Perceived quitting intentions as the outcome variable; competitive worldview as predictor; original description as fixed effect; race, gender, income, education, and age as control variables.

(#tab:unnamed-chunk-21)
Term \(\hat{\beta}\) 95% CI \(t\) \(\mathit{df}\) \(p\)
Intercept 6.15 [5.07, 7.23] 11.15 274.59 < .001
CWV -0.25 [-0.45, -0.05] -2.51 274.96 .013
Age 0.00 [-0.01, 0.02] 0.15 272.45 .883
Race white -0.21 [-0.59, 0.17] -1.09 274.61 .275
As numericedu 0.06 [-0.10, 0.23] 0.74 273.59 .458
As numericincome 0.02 [-0.05, 0.09] 0.46 271.94 .645

this is a bummer.

Extra exploratory

By scenario

I’ll just look at the correlation between CWV and relational expectancies by scenario. Let’s see if anything pops out.


Looks like the problematic ones are: 7, 12, 15, 22, 30, 37, 39, and 42.

Let’s take a look at these descriptions:

og_pid description
7 I work as an Ecommerce Specialist for a Fabric company that is expanding their virtual presence. As such, I make many nuance and minor decisions about the visual layout as well as the descriptions and images used for items/listings. All of these add up to a much bigger picture to increase sales and revenue. My manager was trying to get me to use hand-made and uploaded images for each listing, versus finding the manufacturing made or other second hand made images. This would be far more time consuming and would hurt our ability to streamline. The manager basically demanded that I did so, and told me that it was an order, and that they will hire someone to produce those images and provide them too me. They weren’t too loud, but they were forceful.
12 I am a worker at a retirement home and for some reason there is a chair in a person’s bathroom which I sit sometimes to take a short break. My boss saw me one time, marched me to her office and had a chat with me, telling me I can’t do that. I said very little and got out of there as soon as I could.
15 I am a lab manager for a forensics lab. My manager wanted me to have the lab accredited through a national accreditation agency. He ordered me to do an enormous amount of documentation, research, and other work knowing I wouldn’t be compensated for the additional work, and he told me he simply didn’t care how many extra hours I had to put into it. He was stern and rude about it.
22 My manager was trying to get me to file paperwork at a court that I knew was not correct. He was very insecure with himself and his role as manager and wanted to show me that he was boss and I had to do what he wanted. Even though I was just a paralegal, I knew the correct information that needed to be included in the court document before it was filed with the court. I brought this point up to my manager and he basically told me I didn’t know what I was talking about and that I just needed to do as he asked. He called me into his office and told me sternly my job was to do his work as he requested. I was very hesitant and didn’t know what to do because I knew if I filed the paperwork as is, it would be rejected by the court.
30 I was working as a cashier at a grocery store. I was tasked with asking customers to donate to a children’s charity. That day, many customers declined to donate. The manager, who was responsible for running the store, called me to the back room and immediately accused me of not doing my job. He used a tone that was accusatory and bossy, stating that I was not asking for donations. He wanted me to obtain more donations so the store could beat others in the competition to raise the most funds.
37 As a marketing coordinator in a fast-paced marketing and sales agency, I found myself under the leadership of a dominant former manager. she was renowned for her assertiveness and uncompromising drive to achieve results, often pushing her team to their limits in pursuit of excellence. In one memorable instance, my manager was determined to revamp our company’s social media strategy to increase sales, engagement and brand visibility. Her dominant behavior manifested in various ways throughout the process. First, she held a high-pressure meeting where she outlined her vision with unwavering confidence, leaving little room for dissent. Her tone was authoritative, and her body language exuded a sense of control, effectively conveying her expectations to the team.
39 Several years back I was working at a gym. There’s usually 3-4 of us at the front desk answering calls, signing people up for membership, giving tours, and answering general questions/concerns people may have. There’s also generally one person designated to janitorial duty/cleaning at all times. The janitor duty wasn’t mine, but occasionally we did help with cleaning tasks. On this day, no different than any other day, I was briefly chatting with a friend at the gym in sight of the front desk. My manger at the time realised this and yelled at me to go clean something. I put an emphasis on yelled because it was definitely not common and primarily due to that fact was talking to a friend. I said okay and continued talking to close the convo. After about a min. or two, he yelled again. So this time, I immediately closed the convo with my friend, kind of looking at each other with a slight grin realising the power trip going on.
42 i work as a nurse in a healthcare facility taking care of patient needs is my role.my manager is my nurse in charge and oversees my roles and allocates duties if necessary.He one day asked me to take up my colleague’s duties as i was signing out. he did it forcefully without considering my plans and state of fatigue.


hmm ok. 7 isn’t very dominant. 12 is is not very dominant. 15 is pretty dominant. 22 is pretty dominant. 30 is pretty dominant. 37 isn’t very dominant and it’s also pretty high on the relational impact scale. 39 is pretty dominant. 42 is somewhat dominant.

Let’s filter out 7, 12, and 37 and rerun the analysis.

(#tab:unnamed-chunk-24)
Term \(\hat{\beta}\) 95% CI \(t\) \(\mathit{df}\) \(p\)
Intercept 1.51 [0.80, 2.21] 4.17 236.93 < .001
CWV 0.12 [-0.01, 0.24] 1.86 236.98 .065
Age 0.00 [-0.01, 0.01] 0.44 235.61 .658
Race white -0.02 [-0.26, 0.23] -0.13 236.74 .894
As numericedu -0.03 [-0.13, 0.08] -0.49 235.18 .627
As numericincome -0.04 [-0.08, 0.01] -1.70 233.61 .090

ok. I mean, we’d obviously be closer because we’re sampling on the dv, but yeah, this gives us a sense of what’s going on.

Order effects

The order was randomized such that some participants first answered the CWV scale and other participants first did the scenario portion. Let’s see if the correlations are vastly different for each of these.

CWV first

Description first

oh yeah, that’s a pretty big order effect, actually. Looks like answering CWV turns off the effect. Makes sense, as most people are on the disagree side of that scale - so it primes them in a way that we might not intend. hmm. Let’s redo the analyses, filtered by order (only the description first group).

(#tab:unnamed-chunk-27)
Term \(\hat{\beta}\) 95% CI \(t\) \(\mathit{df}\) \(p\)
Intercept 0.99 [-0.01, 1.99] 1.94 130.40 .054
CWV 0.18 [0.00, 0.36] 1.92 129.88 .057
Age 0.01 [-0.01, 0.03] 1.20 127.44 .231
Race white 0.01 [-0.32, 0.34] 0.04 128.47 .969
As numericedu 0.00 [-0.15, 0.16] 0.04 125.96 .969
As numericincome -0.04 [-0.10, 0.03] -1.12 130.85 .266

yeah, this tracks. We’re obviously losing a lot of power - with a full sample we’d probably get an effect.