Competition, Power, and Testosterone: How Winning and Losing Affect Men's Empathic Accuracy ...

219 Pages·2015·3.09 MB·English

by  John G. Vongas

Competition, Power, and Testosterone: How Winning and Losing Affect

Men’s Empathic Accuracy and Aggression

John G. Vongas

A Thesis

in

John Molson School of Business

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy (Business Administration) at

Concordia University

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

May 2015

© John G. Vongas, 2015
CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY
School of Graduate Studies

This is to certify that the thesis prepared

By: John G. Vongas

Entitled: Competition, Power, and Testosterone: How Winning and Losing Affect
Men’s Empathic Accuracy and Aggression

and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy (Business Administration)

complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to
originality and quality.

Signed by the final Examining Committee:

________________________________________ Chair
Dr.

________________________________________ External Examiner
Dr. Aaron C.H. Schat

________________________________________ External to Program
Dr. Simon Bacon

________________________________________ Examiner
Dr. Michel Cossette

________________________________________ Examiner
Dr. Tracy D. Hecht

________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Ronald J. Ferguson

Approved by_____________________________________________________________
Chair or Graduate Program Director

___________ 2015 ___________________________
Dean of Faculty
ABSTRACT

Competition, Power, and Testosterone: How Winning and Losing Affect Men’s
Empathic Accuracy and Aggression

John G. Vongas, PhD

Concordia University, 2015

This thesis investigates the effects of winning and losing on men’s testosterone
and how these hormonal changes impact their emotion recognition ability or ‘empathic
accuracy’ (Study 1) and their aggression (Study 2). It also explores how men’s
personalized power motivation – their drive to influence other people for self-
aggrandizing purposes – moderates the relationships between the competitive outcomes
they experienced and their accuracy and aggression. In Study 1, 84 males competed in
dyads on a spatial-cognitive task that allegedly gauged their leadership potential, future
earnings, and likelihood of career success after which they interpreted people’s
emotional expressions from static photographs. Results showed that winners’
testosterone decreased while that of losers increased. Second, winners were more
capable of accurately inferring others’ emotions compared to losers and this ability
improved with increasing personalized power. Third, testosterone change mediated the
relationship between competitive outcomes and empathic accuracy, with post-
competitive increases in testosterone relating to increases in accuracy. In Study 2, 72
males competed again in dyads after which they participated in two sequential tasks that
measured their unprovoked (‘proactive’) and provoked (‘reactive’) aggression. As in
Study 1, losers experienced a post-competitive testosterone increase, whereas winners
experienced a decrease. However, neither competitive outcome nor testosterone change
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had a significant effect on proactive and reactive aggression. Moreover, as men’s
personalized power increased, winners aggressed more proactively than losers, whereas
losers aggressed more reactively than winners. Collectively, these are the first studies
to explore how winning and losing interact with men’s personalized power motivation
to affect various empathic responses. This research is important because we know little
about what happens to behaviours and cognitions in the aftermath of a status-based
contest. Given that competition is encouraged in many organizations and the workplace
is a social setting in which zero-sum games are played out each day, findings from this
research could assist managers in fostering healthier competitive work climates.
Finally, among the myriad of future avenues worth pursuing, I particularly recommend
that scholars look into how competition, personalized power, and endocrine changes
jointly affect women’s empathic accuracy and aggression.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank my supervisor Ronald Ferguson who helped me greatly with sound advice
and encouragement. I am also very grateful to my thesis committee, Tracy Hecht, Simon Bacon,
Michel Cossette, and Aaron Schat whose insights helped to improve the quality of this work.
My gratitude also extends to several scholars who devoted their time to guide me
throughout this endeavour. Oliver Schultheiss and Justin Carré stood out as two individuals who
helped shape not only my conceptual thinking about the phenomena under investigation, but also
my methodological approach when crafting the studies. Many thanks go to Kaspar Schattke,
Anja Schiepe-Tiska, Ursula Hess, Judith Hall, Richard Ronay, Pranjal Mehta, Joyce Pang, Joel
Lieberman, Geneviève Taylor, and Véronique Taylor. I am also indebted to Onur Bodur and
Bianca Grohmann from JMSB’s Centre for Multidisciplinary Behavioural Business Research
and Laboratory for Sensory Research, respectively, for top laboratory facilities and equipment,
and to Sean Draine and Katja Borchert from Millisecond Software for their effort and expertise
in the development and administration of the paradigms I used.
Much appreciation goes to fellow PhD colleagues (Raghid Al Hajj, Guillaume Pain, Tony
Bongiorno, Zheni Wang, Louis Thwaites, Gillian Leithman, Ehsan Derayati, Heather Cluley
Bar-Or, Carolina Saffie-Robertson), JMSB lecturers (Aaron Dresner, Tima Petruchka, Adriane
Porcin, Melanie Briand, Michel Greiche), and undergraduate students (Pauline Aldon, Rime
Iman, Olivier di Pietrantonio, Lianne Barile, Liane Tomlinson, Agnieszka Gadocha, Steffi
Hudier, Chelsea Boodram, Florian Marandet) who either volunteered in helping to coordinate my
laboratory tasks, encouraged student participants to take part in my research, or just stepped in to
facilitate logistics when needed. I could not have accomplished this without you.
I appreciated the support from JMSB faculty who helped make my PhD experience a
unique one, including Gary Johns, Linda Dyer, Robert Oppenheimer, Raymond Paquin, and
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Stéphane Brutus. I would also like to thank Marylène Gagné who believed in my ideas and
helped me to pursue my passion at the earlier stages of my thesis.
Finally, I dedicate my thesis to the most important people in my life. To my parents, Lola
and George, for your encouragement and support when it came to my early interest in
knowledge. I owe my education to you above anyone else. To my sister, Christina, for your
fighting spirit that has always inspired me. I will never forget how you caught up to that school
bus on Bloomfield Avenue when we were little, and this kept me going. And finally, to my little
Rymoushka for your love and passion for life that have no boundaries. Thank you for choosing
to go on this adventure with me. I’m the luckiest guy to have you by my side. I love you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………….………..….xii
List of Figures………………………………………………………………………….……....xiii
List of Appendices……………………………………………………………………………...xiv

CHAPTER ONE
1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….………..1

CHAPTER TWO
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND………………………………………………..….…8
2.1. What is Empathy? Multiple Meanings for a Complex Phenomenon………….….…8
2.2. What is this Person Feeling? A Primer on Empathic Accuracy……………….……12
2.3. The Two Faces of Aggression: Proactive versus Reactive Aggression………….…..13
2.4. Power Motivation: A Desire for Status and Impact…………………………………14
2.4.1. Not all motives are the same: Implicit versus explicit motives………………..16
2.4.2. Not all implicit power is the same: Personalized versus socialized power…...18
2.5. Testosterone and Social Behaviour…………………………………………………..20
2.5.1. The biology of testosterone………………………………………………………20
2.5.2. Prenatal testosterone and ‘masculinizing’ behaviours………………………...21
2.5.3. Context is key: Testosterone and the challenge hypothesis……………………23

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CHAPTER THREE
3. RESEARCH MODEL AND HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT…………………….25
3.1. Direct Effects of Competitive Outcomes on Empathic Accuracy…………………..27
3.2. Direct Effects of Competitive Outcomes on Aggression…………………………….29
3.3. Mediation by Testosterone of Win/Loss on Empathic Accuracy and Aggression...32
3.3.1. Social hierarchy, competition, and men’s testosterone…………………….….32
3.3.2. Testosterone’s effect on empathic accuracy……………………………………39
3.3.3. Testosterone’s effect on aggression……………………………………………..44
3.4. Personalized Power: A ‘Powerful’ Moderator………………………………………50
3.4.1. Personalized power moderates the direct effects of competition on empathic
accuracy…………………………………………………………….………….….50
3.4.2. Personalized power moderates the direct effects of competition on
aggression…………………………………………………………………………55

CHAPTER FOUR
4. METHOD FOR THE STUDY OF EMPATHIC ACCURACY (STUDY 1)…….…..59
4.1. Participants……………………………………………………………………….……59
4.2. Procedures and Materials…………………………………………………….………60
4.3. Measures……………………………………………………………………….………67
4.3.1. Treatment of competition outcome……………………………………………..67
4.3.2. Testosterone measures…………………………………………………………...67
4.3.3. Assessment of implicit power motivation……………………………………….69
4.3.4. Treatment of empathic accuracy…………………………………………….….72
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4.3.5. Controls……………………………………………………….……………….….72
4.3.6. General statistical approach………………………………….……………....…74
4.3.7. Descriptive statistics………………………………………….….……………….75

CHAPTER FIVE
5. RESULTS FOR THE EMPATHIC ACCURACY STUDY (STUDY 1)………….…77
5.1. Tests of Hypotheses………………………………………………………….…..…....77

CHAPTER SIX
6. METHOD FOR THE AGGRESSION STUDY (STUDY 2)………………………….82
6.1. Participants…………………………………………………………………………….82
6.2. Procedures and Materials…………………………………………………………….83
6.2.1. Proactive aggression……………………………………………………………..83
6.2.2. Reactive aggression……………………………………………………...….……84
6.3. Measures…………………………………………………………………………….…87
6.3.1. Treatment of competition outcome…………………………………….…...…..87
6.3.2. Testosterone measures……………………………………………….….…….....87
6.3.3. Assessment of implicit power motivation…………………………….….….…..88
6.3.4. Treatment of proactive and reactive aggression…………………….…............88
6.3.5. Controls………………………………………………………………..…….…....89
6.3.6. Statistical approach for Study 2…………………………………….…….….....90
6.3.7. Descriptive statistics………………………………………………….…..…..…..90

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CHAPTER SEVEN
7. RESULTS FOR THE AGGRESSION STUDY (STUDY 2)……………….……....…92
7.1. Tests of Hypotheses…………………………………………………………………....92

CHAPTER EIGHT
8. DISCUSSION………………………………………………………………….….……..97
8.1. Overview of Studies………………………………………………………………...…97
8.2. Major Findings and Theoretical Implications for Empathic Accuracy…….….….97
8.2.1. Winning, losing, and empathic accuracy………………………………..……...97
8.2.2. Winning, losing, and testosterone: Explaining mixed findings………….….....99
8.2.3. Testosterone changes and empathic accuracy……………………….…….….101
8.2.4. Winning, losing, and empathic accuracy: Is testosterone a mediating
mechanism? ……………………………………………………………….…….103
8.2.5. Personalized power: How winners differ from losers in empathic
accuracy …………………………………………………………….……….…..104
8.3. Major Findings and Theoretical Implications for Proactive and Reactive
Aggression ……………………………………………………………………….…..106
8.3.1. Winning, losing, and both aggression types……………………………….…..106
8.3.2. Testosterone and aggression: Duality, permissive effect,
or reverse causality? …………………………………………………………...108
8.3.3. Personalized power: Witnessing how status wins and losses relate to
aggression ……………………………………………………………………….110
8.4. Managerial Implications …………………………………………………………....112
8.5. Research Limitations ……………………………………………………….……….122
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