Description

Participants read about the spaghetti paradigm. They were then shown the two messages:

Dominant:

By now you know the task at hand. It’s time to get in there and do your absolute best across all rounds. If you don’t complete it and do it well, you will not get the full bonus.

Non-Dominant:
Your job in this task is to select the shapes that match the description. Please make sure you look at them carefully. It would be great if you can get as many of them right as possible.

Then, they were shown one of three definitions of dominance:
1: Dominant behavior is when a manager uses power, fear, intimidation, and/or coercion in how they act toward a subordinate.
2: Dominant behavior is when a manager acts in a way that is forceful, assertive, and/or aggressive toward a subordinate.
3: Dominant behavior is when a manager uses fear, threat, and/or compulsion in how they act toward a subordinate.

Finally, they were asked how dominant each message was.

Dominance

Dominant message

How dominant is the following message? (1 = Not at all dominant to 5 = Extremely dominant)

By now you know the task at hand. It’s time to get in there and do your absolute best across all rounds. If you don’t complete it and do it well, you will not get the full bonus.

dominance_rating
3.688119

Non-Dominant message

How dominant is the following message? (1 = Not at all dominant to 5 = Extremely dominant)

Your job in this task is to select the shapes that match the description. Please make sure you look at them carefully. It would be great if you can get as many of them right as possible.

dominance_rating
1.717822

Broken down

Let’s see if there are any meaningful differences by dominance definition.

Dominant message

def dominance_rating
1 3.701493
2 3.544118
3 3.820895

Non-Dominant message

def dominance_rating
1 1.641791
2 1.735294
3 1.776119