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Padriag -> RE: Not another Nature/Nurture...? Nope. (7/25/2006 5:16:55 AM)
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Well I never believed it was nature over nurture, and have said as much. Regardless I think its something else at work.
First, let's try to think a little more broadly than black and white. That is, rather than assuming everyone is either absolutely dominant or submissive, what if we consider that there may be differing degrees of each. And presumably there must be, or else how do we explain switches?
It was this very line of thinking that caused me to come up with what I call, for lack of a better term, my "Dominance theory." I really need to write this up in an essay but briefly it goes like this.
Everyone possesses a degree of dominance. We might rate this on a scale of 1 to 10 or some similar handy representative scale. At the low end, a rating of one would indicate very little dominance, and thus a very meek and servile personality, while at the other a 10 would indicate an extremely dominant personality. Few people would rate either a 1 or a 10, both are rare. Thus most submissives would be a 2, 3 or a 4. Most dominants would be a 7, 8, or 9. Switches, would then be a 5 or 6.
Now here's what those numbers mean in practical terms. People submit to others who are more dominant than they are themselves. Thus a 2, 3 or 4 submits to a 7, 8 or 9 because the later are more strongly dominant. A 5 or 6 switches because they're in that middle area where they are more strongly dominant than some, but weaker than others.
We could argue why someone submits to someone more strongly dominant, but the point here is, they do. What's more interesting, is that according to my theory, a strong submissive (a 4) or a switch (5 or 6) will only likely only submit to a strong dominant (9 or 10) because there needs to be a large enough degree of difference to trigger submissive behavior. That is, the dominant must be strongly enough dominant to overpower the level of dominance in another, triggering submissive behavior. This is why a switch can submit to some and dominate others, because there are some strong enough to overwhelm their own dominant traits, while still being able to do so to some others.
Or so the theory goes, I'm still working it out. For example, I'm still trying to account for why women seem more frequently to switch than men? And what about emotional connections, why is it sometimes a dominant individual becomes submissive towards another when in the context of a relationship? It also doesn't effectively account for personal perceptions. That is suppose someone perceives someone else to be very dominant because of some trait of that person (someone who is very intelligent for example) when in fact that person may actually only possess a moderate degree of dominance, yet is treated as though they possessed a high degree. I don't have all the answers as yet, but I'm working on it.
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