Hierarchy as a signal of culture and belonging: Exploring why egalitarian ideology predicts aversion to hierarchical organizations

Variation in people's ideological preference for the maintenance of inequality between social groups (i.e., social dominance orientation; SDO) predicts important sociopolitical outcomes, such as endorsement of different social policies, institutions, and belief systems. We argue that SDO may also inform people's engagement with work organizations. Specifically, we propose that SDO may impact attraction to different organizational structures. Across 6 experiments (N = 3034), we find that people with relatively egalitarian values are less attracted to organizations with much (vs. little) managerial hierarchy; this gap in attraction is attenuated for relative anti-egalitarians (Studies 1a-b). These effects are not moderated by whether dominant vs. subordinate group members occupy positions of power in hierarchical arrangements (Study 2a-b) and are driven by signals concerning likelihood of organizational belonging that egalitarians (vs. anti-egalitarians) derive from managerial hierarchy (Studies 3a-b). We discuss implications for social dominance theory and research connecting ideology to organizational attraction.