"It’s Not Personal, It’s Positional: Interactive Effects of Power and Status on Relationship Conflict"

It is often presumed that relationship conflict stems from incompatible personality types. In contrast to this idea, the present article provides a role-based account. Four studies, conducted both in the field and laboratory, indicate that occupying roles that afford power but lack status leads to relationship conflict by fostering demeaning attitudes and behaviors. In Study 1, supervisors in a federal agency experienced higher levels of...