Dominant Jerks: People infer dominance from the utterance of challenging and offensive statements

Abstract

Why do people utter offensive or challenging statements? One reason might be displaying one’s dominance: if no one calls out the speaker of a challenging statement, it might because the audience is afraid to challenge the speaker. In two experiments (N = 635), participants read vignettes in which a speaker uttered either a statement about a mundane topic, or an offensive statement. The statement was either challenging (it clashed with the audience’s prior views) or unchallenging (it agreed with the audience’s prior views), and the audience either accepted or rejected the statement after it was uttered. Speakers who uttered challenging statements the audience nonetheless accepted were deemed more dominant and more likely to be the boss of the audience members.