Two UK survey studies have found that employees with a strong desire to assert dominance are more likely to read sexual interest into the friendly behaviour of a coworker of another gender, and those who perceive more sexual interest report engaging in more workplace sexual harassment, particularly among men. The research was published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, authored by Sanne Feenstra of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Mark van Vugt.
The studies address a common workplace dilemma: calculating whether a colleague’s neutral niceties—smiling, small talk or polite friendliness—reflect simple politeness or romantic and sexual interest. Such misperceptions can shape professional interactions, which are already influenced by power, status and hierarchy in the workplace.
Researchers note that, on average, men are more likely than women to interpret ambiguous social behaviour as sexual interest, though both sexes can make such errors. They argue that in organisational settings—where status and control are salient—individual differences in the desire for social dominance may be particularly consequential.
Dominance, they propose, can lead some workers to interpret colleagues’ behaviour through a sexualised lens and to assume sexual interest where none was intended. Such perceptions, in turn, may make inappropriate advances seem justified to the initiator and increase the risk of workplace sexual harassment.
Feenstra and van Vugt describe perceptions of sexual intent as potential triggers for harassment because they influence how people interpret social cues. If someone perceives heightened sexual interest, they may view their own behaviour as a proportionate response rather than harassment.
The researchers also argued that heightened perceptions of sexual intent could prompt dominance-motivated individuals to misconstrue signals of non-consent as “token resistance,” leading to continued unwanted advances. They tested these ideas in two studies.
The first study recruited 209 employed adults in the United Kingdom via Prolific Academic, who completed two surveys one week apart. Their average age was 38, with half identifying as women, and all participants were heterosexual, because the study examined responses to a coworker of another gender.
In the initial survey, participants completed measures of dominance motivation (for example, “I enjoy having control over others”) and prestige motivation (for example, “My colleagues respect and admire me”), along with sociosexual orientation, their formal power at work, and their gender. In the second survey, they read descriptions of seven behaviours by a coworker of the opposite gender—such as smiling brightly and striking up a friendly conversation on the first day of work—and rated how much each described sexual interest. Women rated a male colleague’s behaviour toward a woman, and men rated a female colleague’s behaviour toward a man.
The second study broadened the sample to 345 employed adults in the UK, with an average age of 40 and 48 per cent women, again recruited through Prolific Academic. Participants completed three surveys one week apart: the first two reused the same measures as in Study 1, while the third asked about general workplace misconduct over the past year and sexual harassment over the past three months.
Harassment was measured by a six-item scale about behaviours toward a colleague of the opposite gender, including asking intimate questions about sex life; overall, reported harassment was rare, with scores clustered near the “never” end of the scale.
In Study 1, stronger dominance motivation correlated with perceiving more sexual interest in a coworker’s behaviour, regardless of participant gender, formal power or openness to casual sex. Prestige motivation showed no such association. Women tended to perceive more sexual interest in men’s behaviour than men did in women’s behaviour, a finding the authors attribute to women’s expectations about men’s sexual interest, noting the study did not measure accuracy of perceptions.
The replication in Study 2 supported these findings. Moreover, participants who perceived more sexual interest reported engaging in more sexual harassment, and these perceptions helped explain the link between dominance motivation and harassment. In exploratory analyses, the pattern held only for men: among women, perceiving sexual interest was not associated with harassment.
Perceptions of sexual interest did not relate to general workplace misconduct, suggesting the observed process may be specific to sexual harassment rather than to broader misconduct. Those reporting higher harassment tended to be men, more open to casual sex, and to report more general misconduct, though these were modest associations.
“Our findings highlight a psychological process linking dominance motivation to workplace sexual harassment and offer insights to diminish such harassment,” the authors concluded. They suggested organisations could reduce emphasis on dominance-oriented traits in hiring and promotion, and instead reward cooperation and respect.
However, the authors caution that, despite the longitudinal-ish design, causal inferences cannot be drawn from the results. They describe the associations as modest, with dominance motivation explaining only a small portion of the differences in sexual intent perceptions and the link to harassment being weak.
All data were self-reported, raising the possibility of underreporting harassment, and the harassment measure had limited reliability. Participants described hypothetical behaviours rather than real interactions, and the study did not assess the accuracy of perceptions. Both samples comprised heterosexual adults in the UK, so the findings may not generalise to other countries, workplaces or same-gender interactions.
The paper, “From Dominance to Harassment: The Hidden Role of Sexual Intent Perceptions in the Workplace,” was authored by Sanne Feenstra and Mark van Vugt.
