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How virtue, competence, and dominance conjointly shape status attainment at work: Integrating person-centered and
Feng Bai1, Katrina Jia Lin2, Jin Yan3
1Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Macau.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|August 15, 2024
Summary
Workplace status is achieved through distinct profiles of virtue, competence, and dominance. High virtue and competence with low dominance yield the highest status, challenging prior research.
Area of Science:
- Organizational Behavior
- Social Psychology
- Sociology
Background:
- Status attainment in organizations is traditionally viewed through virtue, competence, and dominance.
- Prior research, primarily using variable-centered approaches, has overlooked the complex interactions between these status-seeking routes.
- A person-centered perspective is needed to understand how combinations of these routes shape workplace status.
Purpose of the Study:
- To integrate person-centered and variable-centered perspectives to explore conjoint effects of virtue, competence, and dominance on workplace status.
- To identify distinct profiles of individuals based on their use of virtue, competence, and dominance for status attainment.
- To examine the differential effectiveness of these profiles in achieving workplace status.
Main Methods:
- Latent profile analysis of existing survey data (Study 1A) to identify status-attainment profiles.
- Replication and validation of identified profiles in an independent sample (Study 1B).
- Preregistered experimental studies (Study 2 & 3) to establish causal evidence for profile effectiveness in hypothetical and real-world workplace contexts.
Main Results:
- Seven distinct profiles of virtue, competence, and dominance were identified.
- These profiles significantly differed in their effectiveness for status attainment.
- A profile characterized by high virtue and competence, but low dominance, was associated with the highest status attainment.
- Experimental studies confirmed the varying effectiveness of these profiles and their real-world relevance.
Conclusions:
- Workplace success requires a strategic combination of multiple status-seeking routes.
- Treating virtue and competence as a single construct (prestige) obscures their unique impacts on status.
- The positive influence of dominance on status is not universal and depends on its interplay with other routes.
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