DISENGAGING FROM THE MORAL DEVIANT:

A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERORDINATE SUPPORT ON EVALUATIONS OF THE QUALITY OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AND THE MODERATION OF

MORAL DISENGAGEMENT

Master’s Thesis Human Resource Management

University of Groningen, Faculty of Management & Organization

August 27, 2012 HAN BRUERS Studentnumber: 1645587 Lindenstraat 4H 1015 KX Amsterdam + 31 (0) 6 44 305 912 hanbruers@gmail.com

Supervisor: PhD Candidate A. Dranca Iacoban Co-assessor: Dr. J. Jordan

DISENGAGING FROM THE MORAL DEVIANT: A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF SUPERORDINATE SUPPORT ON EVALUATIONS OF THE QUALITY OF SOCIAL

INTERACTIONS AND THE MODERATION OF MORAL DISENGAGEMENT

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT………2

TABLE OF CONTENTS………...3

1. INTRODUCTION………..4

2.  THEORETICAL  FRAMEWORK  ………7  

  2.1  Support  versus  No  Support……….……….7  

  2.2  Superordinate  Group  Support……….9  

  2.3  The  Moderating  Role  of  Moral  Disengagement………..11  

3.  METHOD..………..14  

  3.1  Participants  &  Design………..….14  

  3.2  Procedure………..……….14     3.3  Measures………..………...15       Dependent  variables………...15 Manipulation………..…………16 4.  RESULTS  ………...17     4.1  Manipulation………..17     4.2  Factor  Analysis………...17     4.3  Descriptive  Statistics.………...18     4.4  Regression  Analysis………..19       Perceived  Attraction………....19       Social  Rejection………19       Trait  evaluation  ………...20   5.  GENERAL  DISCUSSION  ………22  

  5.1  Summary  of  findings  ………22  

  5.2  Limitations  &  Future  Research.………..22  

  5.3  Theoretical  &  Practical  Implications  ………24  

6.  REFERENCES  ……….27  

7.  APENDICES.………....32  

DISENGAGING  FROM  THE  MORAL  DEVIANT:  A  STUDY  OF  THE  INFLUENCE  OF   SUPERORDINATE  SUPPORT  ON  EVALUATIONS  OF  THE  QUALITY  OF  SOCIAL   INTERACTIONS  AND  THE  MODERATION  OF  MORAL  DISENGAGEMENT  

1. INTRODUCTION

The importance of top management support in organizational context has long been recognized (Doll, 1985; Young & Jordan, 2008). Imagine a situation where an employee works as a corporate in a big organization’s recruitment team. Recently, in order to fill a vacancy, he decides to hire a candidate of Islamic origin because, he believes that Muslims should also get a chance to prove themselves in the workplace. However, against his expectations, people in the upper management team strongly disapprove his recommendation. Do you think the employee’s colleagues are still eager to work with him? Do you think others would blame him for his apparently strange view? When you ask yourself these questions, you probably already perceive possible effects of evaluations of the quality of social interactions when a higher order group does not support someone. The current study aims to examine this process in order to contribute to what is already known about superordinate group support.

looking at the effects of superordinate group support on people’s evaluations of the quality of social interaction.

In order to understand superordinate group support as a situational condition, the concept of deviance has to be introduced. Deviance refers to a situation in which members do not conform to the majority of the group (Hogg et al., 1995). In order to have superordinate group support, one must deviate from the subordinate group. If there is no support at all, neither the subordinate- nor the superordinate group supports the deviant. However, there is a specific type of deviance that might play a more important role, namely moral deviance. Research shows that people find their group’s moral status to be more important, compared to a group’s non-moral status, such as competence (Täuber & van Zomeren, 2012). Consequently, moral deviance could have a higher impact on the evaluation of the quality of social interactions compared to non-moral deviant behaviour. Therefore, since the focus of this paper is on measuring the effects of superordinate group support, I chose to look at moral deviance as a necessary deviance condition.

When concentrating on social relations in the domain of morality, possible moral based influenceable individual characteristics should be considered, such as moral disengagement. However, little is known about moral disengagement and especially people’s propensity to morally disengage (Detert, Treviño & Sweitzer, 2008; Moore et al., 2012). This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge on the influence of people’s propensity to morally disengage by studying the interaction between individual’s propensity to morally disengage and superordinate group support when predicting evaluations of the quality of social interactions.

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 Support versus No Support

The presence of others, who are in the position to provide support, has been elaborately studied across a variety of disciplines and research areas. One way of defining support is as “an exchange of resources between at least two individuals perceived by the provider or recipient to be intended to enhance the wellbeing of the recipient” (Shumaker & Brownell, 1984, p.31). In organizational context support seems to have many influences. For example, having support has a positive influence on job insecurity, employee performance (Schreurs, 2012) and a negative influence on turnover intentions (Newman et al., 2012). Above this, it seems to have a positive effect on employees’ ability to cope with stressful situations (Collins, 2008). This provides evidence for the stress-buffering hypothesis, suggesting that people, who are socially supported, compared to people who are not socially supported, are more effective in coping with stressful conditions. Besides, research also demonstrated an influential mediating role of support (Sloan, 2012). This study showed that in case people were treated unfair by their supervisor, they tended to be more satisfied with their jobs when they received social support from peers/colleagues. Overall the above-mentioned findings indicate that having support positively influences employees’ wellbeing (Turner, 1983).

people place such a high value towards groups they belong to and their social relations, it is clear that having support and being evaluated positively is of individual interest (DeWall, Baumeister & Vohs, 2008; Williams, 2007). More specifically, according to the black sheep effect (Marques, Yzerbyt & Leyens, 1988) group dynamics and social relations change by the derogation or promotion of in-group members, depending on their likeability. Subsequently, when in-group members are not supportive towards a deviant, they might negatively evaluate the deviant in order to maintain a positive group identity (Pinto et al., 2010). This depends on how much members experience the deviant as a threat towards keeping the positive social identity. By contrast, group members can show a high group support by favouring in-group members when they believe those members positively contribute to the in-group’s identity.

2.2 Superordinate Group Support

As mentioned before, not much research has focused on the concept of superordinate support. However, in order to clarify its possible effects finally and make hypotheses, social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and the concept of in-group favoritism is used. I continue with mentioning the importance of superordinate group support by referring to perceived organizational support. Last, I highlight the expected relationship between superordinate group support and evaluations of the quality of social interactions.

favoritism, the more people are likely to positively evaluate other in-group members, such as a moral deviant.

A specific type of superordinate group support is organizational support. Eisenberg & Huntington (1986) refer to perceived organizational support (POS) and define it as people's global beliefs about the extent to which the organization cares about their wellbeing and values their contributions. Research on POS indicates that it positively influences employees’ psychological wellbeing (e.g. Allen, Shore & Griffeth) and leads to a more positive attitude towards and evaluations of the organization (Eisenberg et al., 1990). These findings give an indication of what I expect with respect to the influence of superordinate group support on evaluations of the quality of social interactions. Hence, having support creates a positive evaluation towards someone who is supported and I argue that it also positively influences the social relations among group members of the superordinate group.

Given the above-mentioned literature, having superordinate group support versus having no support at all, is expected to positively influence evaluations of the quality of social interactions in the workplace. Thus I hypothesize:

Hypothesis 1a. There is a positive relationship between superordinate group support and perceived attraction.

Hypothesis 1b. There is a negative relationship between superordinate group support and social rejection.

2.3 The Moderating Role of Moral Disengagement

However, there are individual differences in the manner in which people evaluate social interactions. One such difference is moral disengagement. Bandura (1986) refers to moral disengagement consisting of several interconnected “cognitive mechanisms” that deactivate self-regulatory processes that normally prevent unethical behavior. As a result of this deactivating people make unethical choices. The moral disengagement theory explains, according to Bandura (1986) why people suddenly are able to commit unethical behavior without blaming themselves, feeling distress, or guilt. In order to be able to measure how likely people are to show moral disengagement Moore et al. (2012) developed a variable named “individuals propensity to morally disengage”. They define the variable as “an individual difference in the way that people cognitively process decisions and behavior with ethical import that allows those inclined to morally disengage to behave unethically without feeling distress” (Moore et al., 2012; p. 2). Research shows the importance of individual’s propensity to morally disengage as being an important individual characteristic and behavioral predictor (Moore et al., 2012). Propensity to morally disengage has a high predictable value for unethical organizational behavior and as a result has negative and costly consequences for organizations (Moore et al., 2012).

might feel threatened by a moral deviant who is supported. Moreover, in multiple studies Monin, Sawyer & Marques (2008) demonstrated that in reaction towards moral deviants people experience a feeling of “failure to take such a principled stance” the moral rebel did. As a reaction they “experience the rebellion as a personal rejection” (Monin, Sawyer & Marques, 2008; p. 87) and develop anger and negative evaluations towards the moral deviant. However, when the moral deviant is not supported, someone highly in touch with his moral self, would not feel threatened, but instead could experience feelings of identification and would thus evaluate the moral deviant more positively.

By contrast, someone high in moral disengagement is more distanced to his/her moral self and attaches less value to his/her moral identity Bandura’s (1986). As a result, the opposite of above should be valid for people who are more distanced to their moral self. They would not feel threatened by the supported moral deviant, because they do not value their moral self. Since people high in moral disengagement do not care about the morality, they might base their evaluations on contextual cues (e.g. Gawronski, 2010), such as the moral deviant having superordinate support or not. As such, when the moral deviant would have superordinate support he would be evaluated positively and when not negatively.

Consequently, I argue that people with a high propensity to morally disengage are expected to more positively evaluate the quality of social interactions of a moral deviant with superordinate support, compared to a moral deviant without superordinate support. On the other side, people with a low propensity to morally disengage are expected to more positively evaluate the quality of social interactions of a moral deviant without superordinate support, compared to a moral deviant with superordinate support. Therefore, I hypothesize:

with support; and people with high propensity to morally disengage perceive moral deviants with superordinate support as more likeable, compared to moral deviants with superordinate support.

Hypothesis 2b. People with low propensity to morally disengage less likely socially reject moral deviants without superordinate support, compared to moral deviants with superordinate support; and people with high propensity to morally disengage less likely socially reject moral deviants with superordinate support, compared to moral deviants without superordinate support.

Hypothesis 2c. People with low propensity to morally disengage evaluate more positively traits of moral deviants without superordinate support, compared to moral deviants with superordinate support; and people with high propensity to morally disengage evaluate more positively traits of moral deviants with superordinate support, compared to moral deviants without superordinate support.

3. METHOD

In upcoming section, the implemented method is discussed that was used to collect the necessary data for testing the hypotheses. First the participants and design are discussed, followed by the procedure and last the measures are remarked.

3.1 Participants and Design

In a laboratory setting, participants were informed that they take part in a study investigating organizational decision-making processes. The participants were 86 undergraduate students (Mage = 20.95 SD = 2.04; range 18 to 25; 47 male and 38 female; 69.8% Dutch, 7% German, 7% Chinese, 7% Swedish, 9.2% Other) of the University of Groningen who either received 4 course credits or were paid 7 Euros in return for their participation. After signing the informed consent forms, participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions (superordinate support versus no support) of the between-groups design.

3.2 Procedure

The main manipulation, which differed in both scenarios, was based on Tom having superordinate support versus not having superordinate support. By stating, “people in the upper management team strongly support Tom’s recommendation”, the first condition created the image of Tom having superordinate support. In contrast, by stating, “people in the upper management did not support Tom’s recommendation”, the second condition created the image of Tom not having superordinate support.

After participants read the scenario, they filled out the first part of questions, intended to measure evaluations of the quality of social interactions. This measurement was constructed by how people evaluated Tom as likable (perceived attraction), what positive traits Tom has (trait evaluation) and how much they socially reject (social rejection) him. Participants were told that they have to answer the questions by thinking of Tom and the recruitment decision he made.

Next, participants were asked to answer a couple of questions about themselves. These questions consisted of items measuring participant’s individual propensity to morally disengage (moral disengagement), the moderating variable. Last, participants filled in the manipulation check questions. The study ended with demographic questions. At the end of the experiment participants were debriefed, rewarded and thanked for their participation.

3.3 Measures

asked to indicate, on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (all the time), if they had the opportunity, how much they would like to “work”, “collaborate” or “consult” with Tom in the future. The last dependant variable used, to measure observer’s evaluation of the deviant’s positive traits, was the 5-item scale trait evaluation (α = .87) (Chan, Louis & Hornsey, 2009). People indicated on a 9-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 9 (strongly agree) to what extend they found the deviant to be “likeable”, “trustworthy”, “worthy of respect”, “intelligent” and “competent”. The items were averaged, with high scores indicating more positive evaluations of the deviant. Last, to measure moral disengagement, an 8-item scale (α = .73) to indicate people’s propensity to moral disengage was used. Participants indicated on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) how they in general think or feel about a given statement. For example: “In general, I think/feel that people shouldn't be held accountable for doing questionable things when they were just doing what an authority figure told them to do.”

4. RESULTS

4.1 Manipulation

On average participants perceived Tom’s decision as deviant (M = 6.20, SE = .01), with a significant different score positively from the mid-point of the scale t(85) = 28.91, p < .01. By contrast, participants did not perceive this deviation as a moral one (M = 3.43, SE = .20). The score on the second manipulation question did not significantly differed positively from the mid-point of the scale t(85) = -.35, p = .ns. Last, participants did think that people in the management team supported Tom’s recommendation more in the superordinate support condition (M = 5.36, SE = .30) than in the no support condition (M = 1.66, SE = .16). This difference was significant t(84) = 10.85, p < .01. Thus, the superordinate support manipulation appears to be effective.

4.2 Factor Analysis

were measured, but unfortunately the first attraction item actually belongs to the social rejection scale. However, I still found proof that two different constructs were measured. Above this, I am also intended to sustain the completeness of Monin et al.’s (2008) attraction scale. Therefor, I decided to keep the attraction scale as Monin et al. (2008) used it.

4.3 Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations and inter-variable correlations for the dependent variables used in this study. Examination of the table indicates three significant correlations among the variables. First, results show a negative relationship between perceived attraction and social rejection (r = -.68, p < .01). This correlation implies that obviously if people perceive attraction towards a deviant, they are also less likely to reject him/her. Furthermore, a positive relationship was also found between perceived attraction and trait evaluation (r = .57, p < .01), indicating that if people perceive attraction towards a deviant, they also evaluate his/her traits as more positively. Lastly, a negative relationship was found between social rejection and trait evaluation (r = -.73, p < .01), which implies that if people evaluate a deviant’s traits as positive, they are less likely to reject him/her. By having the highest magnitude, this correlation indicates a very strength, but also the strongest relationship found compared to other relationships.

TABLE 2

Means (M), Standard deviations (SD) and correlations

Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 1. Moral disengagement 2.24 0.60 -- 2. Likability 3.86 0.59 .037 -- 3. Social rejection 3.29 1.15 .025 -.68* -- 4. Trait evaluation 6.26 1.14 -.11 .57* -.73* -- Note: N = 86.

4.4 Regression Analysis

To test the hypotheses regression analyses was conducted. Table 2 (see Appendix) presents the results of the regression analyses. In the first step the independent variable superordinate support and moral disengagement were added and in the second steps the interaction term superordinate support x moral disengagement was added. Below the results of the analysis are presented.

Perceived Attraction. The results of the hierarchal regression analysis for perceived attraction do no support the hypothesized main effect of superordinate support on perceived attraction (hypothesis 1a). Although the regression coefficient demonstrates there is a slightly positive relationship between superordinate support and perceived attraction, this effect is not significant (b = .024, p > .05) and does not contribute to the variance of the model (ΔR2 ₌

.002, p > .05). However, step 2 in the regression analysis indicates a moderation effect of moral disengagement, confirming hypothesis 2a. Moral disengagement seems to have a positive influence on the relationship between superordinate support and perceived attraction (b = .27, p < .01). As expected this moderation also significantly contributes to the variance of the model (ΔR2 _{= .076, p < .01). To see the direction of the moderation of moral}

disengagement, the interaction is plotted in figure 1 (see Appendix). This figure indicates that people with low propensity to morally disengage perceive moral deviants without superordinate support as more likeable, compared to moral deviants with support; and people with high propensity to morally disengage perceive moral deviants with superordinate support as more likeable, compared to moral deviants with superordinate support.

.05). However, step 2 in the regression analysis for social rejection indicates a moderation effect of moral disengagement, providing support for hypothesis 2b. Moral disengagement has a positive influence on the relationship between superordinate support and social rejection (b = .47, p < .05). As expected, this moderation also significantly contributes to the variance of the model (ΔR2 = .058, p < .05). To see how the moderation of moral disengagement works, the interaction is plotted in figure 2 (see Appendix). This figure indicates that people with low propensity to morally disengage less likely socially reject moral deviants without superordinate support, compared to moral deviants with superordinate support; and people with high propensity to morally disengage less likely socially reject moral deviants with superordinate support, compared to moral deviants without superordinate support.

5. GENERAL DISCUSSION

Responding to the underdeveloped research domain about superordinate group support, this paper contributed by studying the relationship between superordinate group support and evaluations of the quality of social interaction. Furthermore, this study shows the importance of moral disengagement as an individual characteristic and expands our understanding of group dynamics and reactions towards moral deviants.

5.1 Summary of Main Findings

5.2 Limitations and Further Research

Before I am able to discuss theoretical and practical implications I should give attention to some limitations of the study. First of all, although the manipulation of deviance was successful, participants did not perceived this deviation to be moral. One explanation might have to do with the content of the scenario. Students probably do not have much experience with hiring processes, diversity and racial differences in an organization, since this might be to far away from their reality. It would be interesting to do a follow-up study with a scenario describing an imaginable and recognizable situation for every student. Additionally it might be the case that in general people do not consider the issue of hiring a person solely based on racial background to be a moral one. Future scenario-based research should make use of more obvious moral situation. For example a scenario about locking people down solely based on their racial background.

Another limitation regards the language used in the study. The majority of the participants were Dutch, while the scenario and questions were written in English. Although all the correspondents indicated that they had no problems with the reading and understanding of English, some caution is necessary here. To see whether this had impact on the results, further research should adjust the study’s language to the native language of the participant.

A third limitation was found in the factor analysis. It showed that one item used to measure attraction, actually belongs to the social rejection construct. Further analysis would be needed to see how the results would change if I would include the attraction item in the social rejection scale. However, I did found that social rejection and attraction represent two different constructs. Ultimately, there can be argued that attraction and social rejection may be considered on a continuum, and not two dichotomous scales.

statements about the dependent variables, as a consequence of the independent manipulation variables. To increase the strength and generalizability of this study, a field study should be done on a sample of employees.

5.3 Theoretical & Practical Implications

I found an effect of superordinate support on the evaluations of moral deviants. However, this effect did not seem to come foreword out of the moral content of the deviation, but rather out of the recruiter being deviant in the first place. In theory, this could mean that people do not consider a candidate’s racial background as important for selecting him/her. By contrast, people may for instance use competence as a more meaningful selection criteria. This is in line with research about affirmative action. Lots of organizations make use of affirmative action plans by which they intend to establish and sustain equality among the workplace based on race, gender or whatsoever (Phelan & Rudman, 2011). Indeed, affirmative action is only meant as guidance to elicit minority candidates above non-minority candidates only when their qualifications are equal (Plous, 2003). Nevertheless, resistance on and misunderstanding of affirmative action, is reason to believe that people prefer to choose candidates based on their qualifications instead of on moral grounds. Particularly, current study contributes to this argumentation by demonstrating that people do not select candidates based on moral considerations.

deviant ideas/plans. More specifically, a deviant is relying on support and acceptance from top management. Superordinate support/top management support is thus crucial for the success of the deviant. Second, superordinate support is also important in an indirect way, by influencing how other people evaluate and react toward deviance. For deviants this is highly valuable, because the more people support and positively evaluate ideas, the more probable and likely it is the deviant’s ideas will be implemented.

Furthermore, although the moderation of deviance did not seem to work, still moral disengagement appeared to be an effective moderator. This is unexpected, since the moral loading of the deviation was reason to include moral disengagement as a possible moderator. Now that it appeared that in general people did not see the deviation described in the scenario as moral, I also would not expect a morally related moderation effect. Since there is very little literature about moral disengagement and people’s propensity to morally disengage, this finding is difficult to explain. However, perhaps moral disengagement applies to situations, which lie beyond the moral domain. People, who might be highly in touch with their moral self, could also be very much in touch with their selves in the first place. Meaning that, these people are eager to do the right thing in general and as a result feel threatened by people who do the right thing, whether this is on a moral domain or a non-moral domain. The same explanation could be translated to people who easily disengage from their moral self. Meaning that these people are also likely to in general disengage from their feelings, but relies on external cues. Anyway, with current study some knowledge is created about the influence of moral disengagement on group dynamics and social evaluations, saying it is an important individual characteristic and should be further studied.

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7. APPENDICES

TABLE 1

Results of a Principled Components Factor Analysis of Perceived Attraction & Social Support

Component 1 2 1. Attraction 1 .85 .012 2. Attraction 2 .33 .49 3. Attraction 3 -.12 .92 4. Attraction 4 .045 .73 5. Rejection 1 .92 .068 6. Rejection 2 .94 -.006 7. Rejection 3 .92 -.065 Note: N = 86 TABLE 3

Results regression analysis of superordinate support with likeability, social rejection and trait evaluation moderated by moral disengagement.

FIGURE 1

Graphical representation of moral disengagement moderating the relationship between

FIGURE 2

Graphical representation of moral disengagement moderating the relationship between

Figure 3. Graphical representation of moral disengagement moderating the relationship