Investigating the impact of guilt and shame proneness on consumer ethics: a cross national study

Studies show that emotions of guilt and shame significantly influence how people live their daily lives when it comes to making ethical decisions. Nonetheless, individuals’ proneness toward guilt and shame has received limited attention in consumer behaviour literature. The study focuses on the impact of anticipated emotions (i.e. guilt and shame) on various consumers’ ethical and unethical behaviours. Using a combination of a panel data sample and a university sample, the overall results between the two countries (i.e. Australia and Indonesia) reveal more similarities than differences. Consumers with high guilt‐proneness are less likely to agree on those unethical behaviours. This study has important theoretical implications for understanding the similarities and differences between both nations and the impact of guilt and shame proneness on consumer ethics.     

Doing Bad to Feel Better? An Investigation of Within- and Between-Person Perceptions of Counterproductive Work Behavior as a Coping Tactic

Employee counterproductive work behavior (CWB, e.g., theft, production deviance, interpersonal abuse) is costly to organizations and those who work within them. Evidence suggests that employees are motivated to engage in CWB because they believe that these behaviors will make them feel better in response to negative workplace events. However, research has yet to consider the situational and individual factors that shape the extent to which employees view CWB in such a manner. In order to provide insight into the decision-making process surrounding the use of CWB as a coping strategy, this study leverages coping theory to examine the factors (both situational/within-person and individual/between-person) that contribute to employees’ beliefs that CWBs will be instrumental for emotion regulation aims in response to workplace stressors. In a repeated measures scenario-based study of 297 employees, we found that individuals’ perceived coping instrumentalities for CWBs are a function of the controllability and source of the stressor as well as a more stable learned response to stressful situations at work.     

Moral Emotions and Unethical Bargaining: The Differential Effects of Empathy and Perspective Taking in Deterring Deceitful Negotiation

Two correlational studies tested whether personality differences in empathy and perspective taking differentially relate to disapproval of unethical negotiation strategies, such as lies and bribes. Across both studies, empathy, but not perspective taking, discouraged attacking opponents’ networks, misrepresentation, inappropriate information gathering, and feigning emotions to manipulate opponents. These results suggest that unethical bargaining is more likely to be deterred by empathy than by perspective taking. Study 2 also tested whether individual differences in guilt proneness and shame proneness inhibited the endorsement of unethical bargaining tactics. Guilt proneness predicted disapproval of false promises and misrepresentation. Empathy did not predict disapproval of false promises when guilt proneness was included in the analysis. The comparatively private nature of the sin of false promises suggests that private ethical breaches are more likely to be deterred by anticipated guilt, while ethical breaches with clear interpersonal consequences are more likely to be deterred by empathy.     

Guanxi with Supervisor and Counterproductive Work Behavior: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction

This study aims to explore the role of informal leader–member interactions in managing counterproductive work behavior (CWB) in a non-Western context. We propose that under the Chinese background, guanxi with supervisor increases employees’ job satisfaction, which further reduces their CWB. Partial least square structural equation modeling with a sample of 272 Chinese employees confirms this mediating effect of job satisfaction. However, we also find that job satisfaction passes the effect of guanxi with supervisor on to CWB targeting people, but not to CWB targeting the organization. Implications for research on CWB and guanxi with supervisor are discussed.     

Why do good employees stay in bad organizations?

Family and work are two of society's most important institutions. It is understandable, then, that some similarities would exist between the two. One unfortunate aspect of such relationships is that families and organizations may be abusive to members. When this occurs in familial relationships, research has identified dynamics that keep people in the abusive situation. We consider here how those same dynamics can occur in abusive organizations to identify factors that keep employees in unhealthy work environments. We then examine intervention techniques and concepts that can be used to enable people to recognize an abusive organization, the long-term damage such organizations can inflict on employees, and ways to assist individuals in exiting an abusive organization setting. Our intention is to create awareness of the harm that can be caused by abusive organizations and provide a framework that will enable people caught in a pattern of organizational abuse to understand their choices and behaviors.     

Of Boldness and Badness: Insights into Workplace Malfeasance from a Triarchic Psychopathy Model Perspective

Research has shown that individuals with high levels of psychopathic personality traits are likely to cause harm to others in the workplace. However, there is little academic literature on the potentially adaptive outcomes of corporate psychopathy, particularly because the “boldness” psychopathy domain has largely been under-acknowledged in this literature. This study aimed to elaborate on past findings by examining the associations between psychopathy, as operationalized using scales from the relatively new triarchic model of psychopathy (boldness, meanness, and disinhibition), and both adaptive and maladaptive workplace behaviors. Participants were 343 working community adults who completed a series of self-report questionnaires that measured psychopathy and various workplace behaviors, including counterproductive work behaviors (CWB), tactics of influence, unethical decision-making, leadership strategies, team play, and creativity. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the associations between latent constructs of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition, and the eight different constructs related to workplace behaviors. It was found that boldness preferentially predicted the use of soft tactics of influence, adaptive leadership, and team play, and negatively predicted passive leadership. Meanness predicted unethical decision-making, poor team play, and hard tactics of influence. Disinhibition positively predicted CWB and passive leadership. Meanness also moderated the association between disinhibition and CWB, in that greater scores on both psychopathy domains indicated greater levels of CWB. These findings provide conceptual support for the triarchic model, including the “boldness” domain, which measures adaptive aspects of psychopathy in addition to maladaptive ones, as well as suggest that not all individuals high on psychopathy would be an overt menace to the workplace. The different psychopathy traits may also interact with each other to predict different types or levels of workplace behaviors.     

非工作时间通信技术过载对员工不道德亲家庭行为的影响机制研究

依据认知失调理论和角色理论，基于320名企业员工两个时点的纵向调研数据，探究了非工作时间通信技术过载通过工作—家庭内疚感诱发员工不道德亲家庭行为的机制，厘清了家庭支持型主管行为和员工角色道德在上述关系中所起到的调节作用。研究结果表明，非工作时间通信技术过载通过工作—家庭内疚感对员工不道德亲家庭行为产生正向影响；家庭支持型主管行为和员工角色道德均在工作—家庭内疚感与不道德亲家庭行为的关系间起负向调节作用；家庭支持型主管行为通过员工角色道德的中介作用间接负向调节工作—家庭内疚感对不道德亲家庭行为的影响。这些结论既是对不道德亲家庭行为研究领域的拓展，同时也为组织抑制员工不道德亲家庭行为提供了有益的指导。     

Do bad apples do good deeds? The role of morality

Research on counterproductive work behaviours (CWBs) has predominantly adopted a victim-centric approach to focus on deleterious effects on organisations while overlooking how displaying CWBs affects the employees themselves and their subsequent behaviours. Drawing on moral cleansing and moral licencing theories, we tested how and when employees’ CWBs influenced their subsequent organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) and whether OCBs affect CWBs. The results from an experimental study and a field study showed that CWBs were associated with guilt which, in turn, motivated employees to engage in more OCBs. In addition, employees with low moral relativism and high guilt-repair proneness strengthened the link between CWBs, guilt and OCBs. We extend research on CWBs by switching focus from a victim-centric perspective to a perpetrator-centric perspective. In addition, we elucidate a specific mechanism and boundary conditions of moral cleansing theory.     

Guilt, Shame, and Reparative Behavior: The Effect of Psychological Proximity

Research has paid scant attention to reparative behavior to compensate for unintended wrongdoing or to the role of emotions in doing the right thing. We propose a new approach to investigating reparative behavior by looking at moral emotions and psychological proximity. In this study, we compare the effects of moral emotions (guilt and shame) on the level of compensation for financial harm. We also investigate the role of transgressors’ perceived psychological proximity to the victims of wrongdoing. Our hypotheses were tested through a scenario based questionnaire on a sample of 261 participants. Analyses indicate that (1) guilt has a stronger effect on the level of compensation than shame; (2) psychological proximity influences the level of guilt, shame, and compensation; and (3) shame interacts with psychological proximity to predict compensation, whereas guilt mediates the relationship between psychological proximity and compensation.     

Linking Human Resource Development Practices to Counterproductive Work Behaviour: Does Employee Engagement Matter

ABSTRACT

Although there is strong evidence in the literature to support the relationship between human resource development (HRD) practices and counterproductive work behavior (CWB), little is known about the psychological processes underlying this relationship. The present study examined whether employee engagement mediates the relationship between HRD practices and CWB. Participants were 271 employees enroled in a part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) program at a large public university in Nigeria. After controlling for demographic characteristics, results showed that HRD practices were negatively related to CWB. The results also indicated that employee engagement plays a role in mediating the relationship between HRD practices and CWB.     

A Note on the Incremental Validity of Integrity Tests beyond Standard Personality Inventories for the Criterion of Counterproductive Behaviour

Although the validity of integrity tests for predicting the focal criterion of counterproductive work behaviour (CWB) is well‐established, little research has yet addressed the incremental CWB‐related validity of integrity tests beyond basic personality traits. The present research addresses this issue by re‐analyzing data adopted from Marcus, Lee, and Ashton (2007), in which four different overt and personality‐based integrity tests and the HEXACO‐Personality Inventory (Lee & Ashton, 2004) were related to CWB. Integrity accounted for practically significant proportions of incremental variance beyond personality across all integrity tests, yet effect sizes of incremental validity dropped considerably if Honesty‐Humility was added to traditional Big Five dimensions. In addition, findings suggest that CWB is best predicted by a combination of integrity and personality tests. Copyright © 2013 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Guilt appeals in cause-related marketing

Despite the growth of cause-related marketing (CRM), little is known about how consumers process cause-focused messages that contain emotional appeals. The present research seeks to further the understanding of guilt appeals in CRM by clarifying the moderating roles of product type and donation magnitude, and exploring the situations when a guilt appeal backfires. Although experimental results indicate that a guilt appeal is more effective than a non-guilt appeal, a guilt appeal backfires when the perceived hedonic value of a product is high. A high donation magnitude also eliminates CRM effectiveness of the guilt appeal. There is an interaction between guilt appeal and donation magnitude when promoting hedonic products with CRM. The findings underscore the importance for marketers of learning more about how guilt appeals work, and in turn describe how practitioners can avoid negative consumer reactions to their guilt appeals.     

Negative Affect and Counterproductive Workplace Behavior: The Moderating Role of Moral Disengagement and Gender

There has been growing scholarly interest in understanding individual-level antecedents of counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB). While researchers have found a positive relationship between individuals’ negative affect and engagement in CWB, to date, our understanding of the factors which may affect this relationship is limited. In this study, we investigate the moderating roles of moral disengagement and gender in this relationship. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that individuals with a greater tendency to experience negative emotions were more likely to engage in CWB when they had a higher propensity to morally disengage. Moreover, we found that this interacting relationship varied across men and women. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and offer avenues for future research.     

Relative Importance of Major Job Performance Dimensions in Determining Supervisors' Overall Job Performance Ratings

This study explores the factor structure of job performance and each performance dimension's relative importance in determining supervisors' overall job performance ratings. We found that the optimal factor structure of job performance includes five dimensions: task performance, organizational citizenship behaviour directed toward the organization and individuals (OCB‐O and OCB‐I, respectively), and counterproductive work behaviour directed toward the organization and individuals (CWB‐O and CWB‐I, respectively). The percent‐based relative weight (%RW) is the highest for task performance in determining job performance, followed by OCB and CWB. Interestingly, the %RW of non‐task performance dimensions directed toward the organization (OCB‐O and CWB‐O) is similar to the %RW of task performance but greater than the %RW of non‐task performance dimensions directed toward individuals (OCB‐I and CWB‐I). Copyright © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Occupational accidents in the Netherlands: incidence,mental harm,and their relationship with psychosocial factors at work

This study investigated the incidence of mental harm due to occupational accidents and the relation between psychosocial factors at work and the occurrence of occupational accidents in the Netherlands for the construction industry and health and welfare sector. Analyses revealed that occupational accidents in the construction industry more often involved physical harm, whereas accidents in the health and welfare sector relatively more often resulted in mental harm, in comparison to other sectors. Results showed that psychosocial factors were associated with occupational accidents in both sectors. For the construction industry, high time pressure and exposure to violence and harassment by colleagues or supervisors were associated with occupational accidents. For the health and welfare sector, low autonomy and exposure to violence and harassment by colleagues or supervisors or by people outside the organization were associated with occupational accidents. The present paper stresses the importance of also taking psychological consequences and psychosocial factors at work into account in assessing the occurrence of occupational accidents.     

Can the Canadian Wheat Board Extract Monopoly Rents? The Case of the Spring Wheat Market

The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) is a monopoly seller of wheat, durum and malting barley from western Canada. This paper examines the question whether the CWB monopoly can extract a premium in the international market place. Using actual transaction data (i.e. actual transaction prices) we estimate that the CWB charged importers an average price premium of $13.35/tonne for wheat over the period 1980-94. In periods when high quality wheat was in short supply the CWB was able to charge higher premiums.We also show that during the period of export subsidies the CWB earned farmers a premium by avoiding subsidized markets.     

Fear, guilt, and shame appeals in social marketing

This paper presents the results from a qualitative study of income support recipients with regard to how they feel about advertising which overtly appeals to their sense of fear, guilt and shame. The motivation of the study was to provide formative research for a social marketing campaign designed to increase compliance with income reporting requirements. This study shows that negative appeals with this group of people are more likely to invoke self-protection and inaction rather than an active response such as volunteering to comply. Social marketers need to consider the use of fear, guilt and shame to gain voluntary compliance as the study suggests an overuse of these negative appeals. While more formative research is required, the future research direction aim would be to develop an instrument to measure the impact of shame on pro-social decision-making; particularly in the context of close social networks rather than the wider society.     

Effects of advertising-evoked vicarious nostalgia on brand heritage

Why do people feel emotional attachment to events occurring before they were born? This paper examines ad-evoked vicarious nostalgia‐induced longing for a time period that an individual did not live through. Vicarious nostalgia impacts brand heritage and leads to stronger brand attachment. Qualitative research (Study 1) and a literature review identify two vicarious nostalgia dimensions—fantasies about past eras and emotions. Initial quantitative research (Study 2) refines these measures, while subsequent quantitative research (Study 3) relates vicarious nostalgia to both antecedents (alienation, fantasy proneness, and nostalgia proneness) and consequences (brand heritage and brand attachment). Self-referencing moderates the relationship between nostalgia proneness and fantasies, while vicarious nostalgia partially mediates the relationship between nostalgia proneness and brand heritage. Both individual propensities (nostalgia proneness) and advertising-evoked vicarious nostalgia enhance or build brand heritage perceptions.     

Shame‐Free Guilt Appeals: Testing the Emotional and Cognitive Effects of Shame and Guilt Appeals

Although many health communication researchers use the terms “shame” and “guilt” interchangeably, arguably these constructs are distinct and have widely divergent psychological consequences. The purpose of this study was to explore distinct cognitive and emotional outcomes resulting from shame relative to guilt appeals. Specifically, this paper provides empirical evidence that negative outcomes such as anger and perceived manipulative intent are more likely to be associated with shame than guilt. Using an experimental design, participants were randomly assigned to view either a shame or a guilt appeal about getting tested for STDs and completed an online questionnaire. Shame was correlated with both anger and perceived manipulative intent whereas guilt was not. Participants who viewed the shame appeal reported higher levels of shame, anger, and perceived manipulative intent. Tactics for creating shame‐free guilt appeals and future research are discussed.     

Influence of personality traits on satisfaction,perception of relational benefits,and loyalty in a personal service context

The relationship between aspects of consumers’ personalities and their perception of relational benefits, satisfaction with, and active or passive loyalty toward the provision of a service (hair styling) are investigated by means of an empirical study of 800 Spanish consumers. The psychological traits examined are need for social affiliation, consumer relationship proneness and need for variety. Using partial least squares analysis (PLS), the results indicate that the perception of relational benefits leads to a higher satisfaction and passive loyalty. Need for social affiliation is a strong determinant of relational benefits, active loyalty and consumer relationship proneness. This latter trait influences the perception of relational benefits along with passive loyalty. Need for variety has a direct negative influence on consumer relationship proneness.