Rebels with a cause: A goal conflict approach to understanding when conscientious people dissent

Do Salient Social Norms Moderate Mortality Salience Effects? A (Challenging) Meta-Analysis of Terror Management Studies

Terror management theory postulates that mortality salience (MS) increases the motivation to defend one's cultural worldviews. How that motivation is expressed may depend on the social norm that is momentarily salient. Meta-analyses were conducted on studies that manipulated MS and social norm salience. Results based on 64 effect sizes for the hypothesized interaction between MS and norm salience revealed a small-to-medium effect of g = 0.34, 95% confidence interval [0.26, 0.41]. Bias-adjustment techniques suggested the presence of publication bias and/or the exploitation of researcher degrees of freedom and arrived at smaller effect size estimates for the hypothesized interaction, in several cases reducing the effect to nonsignificance (range g_corrected = -0.36 to 0.15). To increase confidence in the idea that MS and norm salience interact to influence behavior, preregistered, high-powered experiments using validated norm salience manipulations are necessary. Concomitantly, more specific theorizing is needed to identify reliable boundary conditions of the effect.

THE VALUE OF EXPERIENCE-BASED SIMULATION IN GARNERING SUPPORT FOR RADICALLY NEW CONCEPTS

Radically new concepts (RNCs) are often killed off early in the new product development (NPD) process because they do not get the required support, such as financial resources from senior managers or input from technical experts. One reason is that the potential value of fledgling RNCs is often difficult for internal audiences to imagine when evaluating them. Our experimental study with 125 RNC evaluators investigates how experience-based simulation may increase their imaginative capability and support for an RNC. It increases imaginative capability in evaluators with positive preconceptions of RNCs (i.e., low cognitive resistance), thus strengthening their support. However, those with negative preconceptions (high cognitive resistance) become less supportive of RNCs in an experience-based simulation than in other settings. We draw from information-processing and construal level theory to explain the positive and negative effects of experience-based simulation. We also provide suggestions for NPD practitioners seeking internal support to progress their RNCs.

Benevolent Conformity: The Influence of Perceived Motives on Judgments of Conformity

Although people often disapprove of conformity, they also dislike when others deviate from group norms. What explains this ambivalence? We hypothesized that judgments of conformity would be affected by whether people view it as motivated by self-interested or benevolent motives. Four studies (N = 808), using both hypothetical and real-life instances of conformity, support this prediction. We find that people judge those who conform to gain social approval (self-interested conformity) as weak-willed, but those who conform out of concern for their group (benevolent conformity) as competent and possessing strong character. In addition, we predict and find that people view self-interested conformity as "fake" but benevolent conformity as revealing one's true self. Finally, we show that differences in perceived intentions explain how people sustain positive self-regard while succumbing to group pressures and why people judge their own conformity more favorably than others' conformity. We discuss implications for encouraging and discouraging conformity.

Sexual Harassment in Academia: Ethical Climates and Bounded Ethicality

This article reviews research on sexual harassment, particularly that pertaining to academia, to understand its underlying causes. Arguing that sexual harassment is an ethical issue, we draw on the field of behavioral ethics to structure our review. We first review ethical climate antecedents at the individual, leader, organizational, and environmental levels and examine their effects on both the occurrence of and responses to sexually harassing behaviors. This discussion is followed by an exploration of research that speaks to the cognitive processes of bounded ethicality—including ethical fading, motivated blindness, and the slippery slope—and their role in facilitating and perpetuating sexual harassment. We conclude by highlighting the value to be gained from integrating research on sexual harassment with research on behavioral ethics and identifying several practical steps that can be taken to curb sexual harassment in academia.

Construal Level Theory in Organizational Research

Construal level theory (CLT) offers a rich and rigorous conceptual model of how the context shapes mental representations and subsequent outcomes. The theory has generated new understanding of cognitions and behaviors such as prediction, evaluation, and decision making in the fields of psychology and consumer behavior. Recently, management and organizational scholars have begun to leverage CLT to derive novel insights regarding organizational phenomena. This article describes CLT and its theoretical underpinnings, provides a focused and integrated review of organizational research incorporating CLT, and offers an agenda for future work in which CLT opens the door to new avenues of inquiry in organizational research and reinvigorates scholarly interest in cognition in organizations.