Expressions of dominance

Power and dominance-submission are two key dimensions of relationships, especially close relationships in which parties rely on one another to achieve their goals and as such it is important to be able to identify indicators of .

Power is the ability to influence behavior and may not be fully assessable until it is challenged with equal force. Unlike power, which can be latent, dominance is a manifest condition characterized by individual, situational and relationship patterns in which attempts to control another party or parties may or may not be accepted. Moskowitz, Suh, and Desaulniers (1994) describe two similar ways that people can relate to society as parties to interpersonal relationships: agency and communion. Agency includes status and is on a continuum from assertiveness-dominance to passive-submissiveness; it can be measured by subtracting submissiveness from dominance. Communion includes love and falls on a continuum from warm-agreeable to cold-hostile-quarrelsome. Those with the greatest and least power typically do not assert dominance while those with more equal relationships make more control attempts.

Power and dominance are closely related concepts that greatly impact relationships. In order to understand how dominance captures relationships one must understand the influence of gender and social roles while watching for verbal and nonverbal indicators of dominance.

Verbal indicators influence perceptions of dominance. To date, dominance has been linked to vocal control (Lamb, 1981, as cited in Dunbar and Burgoon, 2005), loudness as measured by amplitude (Burgoon and Hoobler, 2002, as cited in Dunbar and Burgoon, 2005; and Dillard, 2000), pitch as measured by frequency (Burgoon and Hoobler, 2002, as cited in Dunbar and Burgoon, 2005; Dillard, 2000), interruptions (Karawosky et al.., as cited in Youngquist, 2009; Karakowsky, McBey, and Miller, as cited in Youngquist, 2009), disfluencies (Dunbar and Burgoon, 2005), amount of talk time (Burgoon and Hoobler, 2002, as cited in Dunbar and Burgoon, 2005) speech rate or the number of words used in an encounter, and message length (Dunbar and Burgoon, 2005; and Dillard, 2000). An important factor for humans and animals to detect in order to survive is the idea of involvement which can be indicated through change and intensity (Tusing and Dillard, 2000). Vocal characteristics such as amplitude and frequency variation indicate change while speech rate can indicate intensity (Tusing and Dillard, 2000). Those with a high speech rate talk faster and as such are usually perceived as more dominant (Aronvitch; Buller and Aune; Buller and Burgoon; Harrigan et al..; Scherer et al.., as cited in Tusing and Dillard, 2000). Interruptions, vocal control, loudness, pitch, verbosity, speech rate and message length were found to predict perceptions of dominance.

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