Social Dominance Orientation - Group-based and Individual Dominance

Group-based and Individual Dominance

Robert Altemeyer said that people with a high SDO want more power (agreeing with items such as "Winning is more important than how you play the game") and more Machiavellian (manipulative and amoral) agreeing with items such as "There really is no such thing as 'right and wrong'. It all boils down to what you can get away with."

These observations are at odds with conceptualisations of SDO as a group-based phenomenon, suggesting that the SDO reflects interpersonal dominance, not only group-based dominance. This is supported by Sidanius and Pratto's own evidence that high-SDO individuals tend to gravitate toward hierarchy-enhancing jobs and institutions, such as law enforcement, that are themselves hierarchically structured vis-a-vis individuals within them.

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