For Goodness Sake
Signaling virtuous victimhood as indicators of Dark Triad personalities
Ekin Ok et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate the consequences and predictors of emitting signals of victimhood and virtue. In our first three studies, we show that the virtuous victim signal can facilitate nonreciprocal resource transfer from others to the signaler. Next, we develop and validate a victim signaling scale that we combine with an established measure of virtue signaling to operationalize the virtuous victim construct. We show that individuals with Dark Triad traits -- Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy -- more frequently signal virtuous victimhood, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic variables that are commonly associated with victimization in Western societies. In Study 5, we show that a specific dimension of Machiavellianism -- amoral manipulation -- and a form of narcissism that reflects a person’s belief in their superior prosociality predict more frequent virtuous victim signaling. Studies 3, 4, and 6 test our hypothesis that the frequency of emitting virtuous victim signal predicts a person’s willingness to engage in and endorse ethically questionable behaviors, such as lying to earn a bonus, intention to purchase counterfeit products and moral judgments of counterfeiters, and making exaggerated claims about being harmed in an organizational context.
To be or to appear to be: Evidence that authentic people seek to appear authentic rather than be authentic
William Hart et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Self-presentation theory suggests that all people strategically self-present, so it struggles to account for self-proclaimed “authentic” people who are apparently unaware or unconcerned with the impressions they make. But, we addressed whether self-proclaimed authentic people create authentic identities via strategic displays that communicate authentic images but are inconsistent with the self's objective experiences. Participants (N = 240) completed a (bogus) color-gazing task under the presumption that authentic people see colors become more (more-intense condition) or less intense (less-intense condition) while gazing at them. Participants reported perceiving color as more intense in the more-intense condition, but this biased responding -- consistent with appearing authentic -- was enhanced by trait-authenticity indicators. This biased responding was not open to awareness. Also, participants higher in trait-authenticity indicators reported possessing more authentic characteristics, and mediation evidence traced these reports to their more biased responding on the task. Self-presentation is fundamental to human nature, and this includes “authentic” people.
Show me the ... family: How photos of meaningful relationships reduce unethical behavior at work
Ashley Hardin, Christopher Bauman & David Mayer
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, November 2020, Pages 93-108
Abstract:
Environmental cues in the workplace influence unethical behavior, but the effects of these cues are less well understood than the effects of individual differences and social aspects of situations on unethical behavior. In this paper, we examine a common but underappreciated aspect of workspaces: photos of close others. Drawing on the literatures on symbols at work and behavioral ethics, we theorize that having photos of close others in sight decreases the hegemony of an economic schema in people’s minds, which in turn decreases their propensity to commit unethical behavior. Supporting our theory, a field survey and three experiments find a negative relationship between displaying photos of close others at work and financial transgressions and indicate that a decrease in the salience of the economic schema is a mechanism that drives the effect. We discuss implications of the results for the literatures on behavioral ethics, symbols at work, and work-life integration.
Reputation management as an alternative explanation for the “contagiousness” of immorality
Tom Kupfer & Roger Giner-Sorolla
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous findings showing that people are reluctant to contact morally disgusting objects such as Nazi clothing have been interpreted as showing that immorality is perceived as physically contaminating. However, self-presentation concerns could underlie the apparent contagiousness of immorality: associating visibly with immoral stimuli risks reputation damage because observers infer immorality by association. In a scenario, participants preferred to wear a Nazi armband under rather than over their clothing, despite the under choice requiring skin contact (Study 1). And participants reported being primarily motivated by reputation, not contamination. Studies 1a and 1b revealed that, when public display was kept constant to minimize reputation concerns, skin contact increased discomfort by a small amount. A lab study using a real Nazi armband showed that the preference for hiding the armband was stronger with an audience (Study 2). Changing perspective in Study 3, third parties judged targets who made direct contact with the armband as less immoral, and even less contaminated, than those who displayed the armband. Another scenario in Study 4 revealed a strong effect of public display, but no effect of skin contact, on negative feelings about wearing an immoral t-shirt. Overall, findings suggest that apparent moral contagion effects may be explained more by self-presentation than by contamination.
Who Would ‘Purge’? Low Self-Control, Psychopathy, and Offending in the Absence of Legal Controls
Ryan Meldrum, Peter Lehmann & Jamie Flexon
Crime & Delinquency, forthcoming
Abstract:
The assumption that people are inherently self-interested and that legal controls are needed to prevent crime underlies several criminological perspectives. In the current study, this assumption is tested by having a sample of 500 U.S. adults report on the likelihood they would engage in criminal behavior if all crime were legal on one day each year -- a scenario depicted in the 2013 film The Purge. Based on the presumption that at least some individuals would “purge,” the extent to which low self-control and psychopathy are associated with the likelihood of purging is also considered. Results indicate that 18% of participants would be likely to purge. In addition, both low self-control and psychopathy are positively associated with the likelihood of purging.
Kant be Compared: People High in Social Comparison Orientation Make Fewer -- Not More -- Deontological Decisions in Sacrificial Dilemmas
Alexandra Fleischmann et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current work tests whether the dispositional tendency to compare oneself to others -- social comparison orientation (SCO) -- impacts decisions in moral dilemmas. Past research offers two competing predictions for how SCO impacts moral decision making: (a) SCO increases deontological judgments because people high in SCO care especially about social norms versus (b) SCO decreases deontological judgments because people high in SCO are competitive and thus unconcerned about causing harm to others. Four studies (two preregistered) find consistent support that SCO decreases deontological decisions. This relationship was robust in employing conventional (Study 1) and process dissociation (Studies 2–4) dilemma analytic techniques. Furthermore, we find that psychopathy uniquely mediates decreased deontological decisions among people high in SCO (Study 4). These results indicate that high-SCO people make fewer deontological decisions because they are less concerned with causing harm. Overall, the current research suggests that there is a dark side to making social comparisons.
Forgoing earned incentives to signal pure motives
Erika Kirgios et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 21 July 2020, Pages 16891-16897
Abstract:
Policy makers, employers, and insurers often provide financial incentives to encourage citizens, employees, and customers to take actions that are good for them or for society (e.g., energy conservation, healthy living, safe driving). Although financial incentives are often effective at inducing good behavior, they’ve been shown to have self-image costs: Those who receive incentives view their actions less positively due to the perceived incompatibility between financial incentives and intrinsic motives. We test an intervention that allows organizations and individuals to resolve this tension: We use financial rewards to kick-start good behavior and then offer individuals the opportunity to give up some or all of their earned financial rewards in order to boost their self-image. Two preregistered studies -- an incentivized online experiment (n = 763) on prosocial behavior and a large field experiment (n = 17,968) on exercise -- provide evidence that emphasizing the intrinsic rewards of a past action leads individuals to forgo or donate earned financial rewards. Our intervention allows individuals to retroactively signal that they acted for the right reason, which we call “motivation laundering.” We discuss the implications of motivation laundering for the design of incentive systems and behavioral change.