Władza w organizacji zawodowej a władza w bliskich relacjach seksualnych

This work addresses the issue of the consequences that holding positions of power in professional life may have upon the individual’s sex life. Studies conducted up to now have demonstrated that the effects of wielding power in one’s professional life may influence the subject in the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral spheres (Fiske, 1993; Goodwin et al., 2000; Tiedens, 2001; Keltner, Gruenfeld & Anderson, 2003; Grant & Keohane, 2005; Anderson & Galinsky, 2006). However, these studies have not yielded extensive information about the interdependencies between power possession in the career context and the exercise of power in intimate relations and sexual life. The goal of this work is to analyze the connections between subjective and objective power in one’s professional position and the functioning of power in intimate sexual relations. The research that was carried out took into consideration the personal dimensions of power (need for power, directedness) and those of sexual function (frequency, degree of satisfaction, anxiety, motivation, dynamics of control in the sexual relation). The research also analyzed the correspondences that biological and psychological gender have with power in the workplace and power in sexual relationships. The study was conducted with the participation of 205 individuals, of whom 100 were people occupying positions of power in their given occupational roles, and 105 were people occupying subordinate positions. In order to measure the objective and subjective degrees of power in the workplace, interviews were conducted eliciting age, sex, income, number of subordinates, and the Sense of Power Scale (Anderson, John & Keltner, 2012) was also employed. Power as an element of sexual relations and sexual functioning was established by means of the following assessment tools: The Multidimensial Sexuality Questionnaire (Snell, Fisher & Walters, 1993), The Affective and Motivational Orientation Related to Erotic Arousal Questionnaire (Hill & Preston, 1996), Sexual Relationship Scale (Hughes & Snell, 1990), Explicit Power–Sex Measure (Chapleau & Oswald, 2010) and Implicit Association Test (Greenwald, McGhee & Schwarz, 1998). The individual aspects of power were assessed according to the Index of Personal Reactions (Bennett, 1988), and Directiveness Scale (Ray, 1976). Gender was diagnosed according to the Psychological Gender Inventory (Kuczyńska, 1992). The research which was carried out revealed statistically significant connections between power in the workplace and the exercise of power in sexual relationships. The exercise of objective power in a professional organizational structure (e.g. employment in a managerial position) was correlated with more frequent initiation of sexual activity, with greater assertiveness in the domain of sexuality, with more frequent acting out of one’s own sexual fantasies, and with a greater propensity for sexual dominance. Individuals displaying a higher sense of power in the professional organization they were characterized additionally by exchange approaches in sexual relationships and a conviction that the power relation is manifested in a sexual act. The results suggested that a significant role is played by the personal conditions of the exercise of power. The need of power additionally correlated with the readiness to undertake sexual activity with the goal of bolstering the feeling of power, a tendency towards sexual domination, sexual assertiveness and the realization of one’s own sexual fantasies. In the research, men occupied managerial workplace positions more frequently than did women; men also earned higher incomes and had greater numbers of subordinates. Men were also characterized by a greater sense of power in professional relations. More frequently than women, men seemed to be motivated in their sexual behavior by a desire to bolster their feelings of power; men also displayed a greater tendency towards sexual domination, more often exhibited exchange approaches to sexual relations expressed a higher level of sexual assertiveness, more frequently sought to realize their own sexual fantasies, and likewise more frequently initiated sexual activity. Psychological masculinity was furthermore correlated with the occupation of managerial professional positions, with a more instrumental approach to sexual behavior, with higher sexual self-confidence and with a greater inclination to initiate sexual activity. Psychological femininity was negatively correlated with size of income, subjective feeling of authority in the workplace, and tendency to initiate sexual activity. The conclusions extrapolated from the results of this research may find application in such areas of applied psychology and medicine as family counseling, marriage counseling, career counseling, and couples therapy