is power sexy?
Brayden
John Levi Martin asked this question in an article published in the American Journal of Sociology last September. This question is inherently interesting, I think, to (everyone) organizational scholars because our setting of scholarly interest, the organization, is one of the primary places where power operates. I also wanted to blog about this paper because, well, it's just a fun paper to read.
Provincial wisdom says yes, people in positions of power have sex appeal. But Martin, ever creative, decomposes the question as a social network problem. Power is essentially a property of a relationship or of a position in a network. Some people have direct power over us (e.g. our bosses). Others have power over a great number of people (e.g. the president). The former is interpersonal power and the latter is status (according to Martin). His question is, do we find the people who have power over us sexy or do we find those with high status sexy?
The answer to that question depends a lot on gender. Men tend to identify high status women as sexy, but they don't find her sexy if she has power in a relationship over them. Women, on the other hand, do not find status in men sexy, but they do find men sexy who have interpersonal power. As it happens, men also rate other men with interpersonal power as sexy.
The results are interesting because they contradict a common assumption about the relationship of power and attraction. The dominant theory is that women attribute sexiness to men who have status because they have resources that women lack. To the contrary, women attribute sexiness to men who have interpersonal power over them, independent of their status or of the resources they control. If either sex is more motivated by the temptation of resources it appears to be men, who attribute sexiness to high status women.
Another way of interpreting the findings, if you permit me, is that men are much more likely to find an inaccessible woman sexy while women find men sexy with whom they have close, personal relations. This scenario preserves the network nature of the question, but it reduces the role that power plays in determining the attribution. I'm not sure how you could distinguish between these different interpretations.
Maybe it is about “getting” the partner´s power. “I want to date someone I consider powerful because then that will show how powerful I am” And then men would find high status women sexy because power for them is high status, while women will find sexy men with interpersonal power, because this is power for them.
Maybe not :)
Julia Scotti
June 26, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Its like climbing a mountain or winning the race, its a lofty physical goal that gets the adrenaline pumping. Conquest and the viking.
rockwatching
June 26, 2006 at 10:39 pm
That’s so weird!! In Japan, it’s common wisdom that men find weakness sexy (vulnerability, maybe?). Powerful women are practically never seen as sexy, while “accessible” women (there is even a popular singer called “The Girl Next Door”) with lower status and who are totally accessible to everyone are viewed as sexy. Of course, there is a saying called “takane no hana” which means the flower on the high cliff (a woman out of most people’s reach) but in recent years powerful women are not popular with men.
Sayaka
August 30, 2008 at 1:33 am
[...] a comment » Post name refers to this article by John Levi-Martin. Previous posts on Venk: the Venk book forum; alternatives to Venk; shock over Rogue [...]
is venkatesh sexy? « orgtheory.net
September 29, 2008 at 4:06 pm
name : hassan mohmmed ali wali
city : sudia arbia lshrqia
address:a lkhopar
jawwal international : 009663508433023
jawwal out site city : 03508433023
jawwal in site city : 0508433023
hassan wali
October 1, 2008 at 4:40 pm
These findings make total sense. It’s accepted wisdom that women find “men-in-charge” sexy (the Mills and Boon TDH hero), while men have always been in love with the naive, helpless (read low interpersonal power) princess (but high status) locked away in a castle, guarded by fierce dragons (challenges/inaccessibility).
As a guy, you tell me which scenario do you find sexier: a domineering, controlling housewife with no status assets (great physical beauty, trust fund, good education) or a soft, slightly diffident and emotionally vulnerable wife (has all the assets the former option lacks; someone who makes your peers look at you with envy) who looks up to you, and hero-worships you. This is just common sense.
The findings do show that women lack this common sense for we are (perhaps truly) attracted to the low-class boss (Marlon Brando in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’) as opposed to a rich, successful wimp.
Minaal
October 17, 2009 at 5:04 pm