ABSTRACT
Noting that the construct of dominance, and its counterpart, submission, are at the center of relational life, Burgoon and colleagues (Burgoon, Johnson, & Koch, 1998) developed a measure to reflect the interactional nature of this concept. Mindful of the psychological, sociological, and biological influences, as well as restrictions that these perspectives place on the current understanding of dominance, the authors suggested an alternative view. Dominance, when viewed through a communication lens, is a commodity of a relationship, not an individual, and therefore, is socially constructed. In kind, the social construction of dominance is created and shared through verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors. In sum, this view, termed the interactionist perspective, asserts that dominance behaviors are responsive to the situation, influenced by the relationship participants, and transformed by these mediating factors (Burgoon & Dunbar, 2000).
