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Green with envy and nerves of steel: Moderated mediation between distributive justice and theft
Personality and Individual Differences 72 (2015) 160–164
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Green with envy and nerves of steel: Moderated mediation between distributive justice and theft q Christa L. Wilkin a,⇑, Catherine E. Connelly b,1 a b
York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M4, Canada
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 5 November 2013 Received in revised form 25 August 2014 Accepted 30 August 2014 Available online 26 September 2014 Keywords: Appraisal model Counterproductive work behavior Distributive justice Emotion Personality Resources
a b s t r a c t The relationship between distributive justice and theft is well established, but the underlying mechanism for this relationship is not yet well understood. We expect that the discrete emotions that individuals experience when they have been paid unfairly may influence how they behave and their personality traits help them cope with unfair pay. In the present study, we therefore use the appraisal model to examine which discrete emotion (i.e., anger, disappointment, and envy) mediates the relationship between distributive justice and theft and conservation of resources theory to examine how emotionality is a personal resource that varies among individuals to help them cope with unfair pay. Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition where we manipulated the fairness of the pay that they received, measured the discrete emotions that they felt after being informed of their pay, and objectively measured how much they stole. The results indicate that envy mediates the relationship between distributive justice and theft and there is a moderating effect of emotionality on distributive justice and envy; and envy and theft. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Workplace theft is particularly problematic in today’s economic climate because some organizations are temporarily reducing their labor costs through salary cuts, freezes, and reduced variable pay (Kennedy, 2003). Depending on how they are conducted, these cost-cutting approaches may elicit perceptions of an unfair distribution of resources or low levels of distributive justice, which may lead employees to steal or to take organizational property without authorization (Greenberg, 1993). Scholars have long acknowledged that emotions have an important role in how individuals respond to low levels of justice (Barclay, Skarlicki, & Pugh, 2005). Emotions are also an important mechanism in predicting unethical behavior because individuals often seek to relieve emotional distress from inequity by engaging in dishonesty (Gino q The authors are grateful for the research funding provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. The research was conducted as a part of Christa L. Wilkin’s doctoral dissertation. We thank Drs. Sandra Robinson, Willi Wiesner, and Aaron Schat for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. A preliminary version of this manuscript was presented at the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA (2012). ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 416 736 2100. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C.L. Wilkin), [email protected] (C.E. Connelly). 1 Tel.: +1 905 525 9140x23954.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.08.039 0191-8869/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
& Pierce, 2009). Although justice theories often discuss emotions, the mediating role of discrete emotions is largely underresearched (Barclay et al., 2005; De Cremer & van den Bos, 2007). Discrete emotions are unique emotional states that include specific emotions such as envy and anger (Barrett, 1998; Izard, 2007). There has been some debate about which emotions arise from low distributive justice (e.g., Bembenek, Beike, & Schroeder, 2007). Some authors suggest that anger is a typical response (e.g., Homans, 1961), but other authors disagree and suggest that low levels of distributive justice lead to disappointment (e.g., Bembenek et al., 2007). It has also been proposed that individuals experience envy when they make social comparisons with others about fairness (Cohen-Charash & Byrne, 2008; Smith, Parrott, Ozer, & Moniz, 1994). Researchers have also called for more studies that investigate how different individuals respond to and recover from violations to their perceptions of justice (e.g., Barclay & Skarlicki, 2009), which may indicate that there are personality differences that help individuals cope with low distributive justice. The purpose of our study is to therefore examine the role of discrete emotions and personality traits in predicting why people steal, which was disguised by informing participants that the study was about how personality traits affect user performance on websites. The participants first completed a survey on their personality and demographic variables before performing a computer task that involved browsing through websites with various layouts.
C.L. Wilkin, C.E. Connelly / Personality and Individual Differences 72 (2015) 160–164
Following the computer task, the research assistant manipulated the amount of compensation given. Participants in the high distributive justice condition were paid the advertised amount of $20 whereas those in the low distributive justice group were originally told that they would be paid $20, but then later told that they would only receive $2. 1.1. The mediating role of discrete emotions The appraisal model refers to a cognitive process that individuals use to interpret or appraise events by evaluating their goals and coping resources (Frijda, 1987; Lazarus, 1991). Based on these appraisals, there are unique consequences to each discrete emotion depending on how individuals cope with their emotions (e.g., Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). Theft may be motivated by both the desire to retaliate against organizations and the desire to restore equity (Greenberg, 1996). However, an important determinant of whether individuals steal to retaliate or to restore equity depends on the justice conditions. Low levels of distributive justice have been shown to predict equity restoration behaviors, whereas retaliation behaviors occur as a result of other types of injustice (Ambrose, Seabright, & Schminke, 2002). Consequently, individuals in our study will be more likely to steal because of the desire to restore equity because we are examining the relationships in the context of low distributive justice. The discrete emotion of envy will predict theft because the goal of envious individuals is to restore equity or reduce their gap with envied others (Ben-Ze’ev, 1992; Heider, 1958). As such, envy may elicit theft because engaging in this behavior can help individuals by regulating their emotions, equalizing the outcomes between the envious and the envied, and protecting the self-esteem of envious individuals (Cohen-Charash & Mueller, 2007). At first glance, a similar discrete emotion of anger may seem related to theft but studies have shown that the relationship is weak. Anger tends to elicit aggressive behaviors to regain threatened outcomes and creates a desire to retaliate (Ganem, 2010; Levine, 1996; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). Indeed, empirical studies show that anger is weakly related to theft (r = .12; Chen & Spector, 1992). As such, we need to more closely examine the assumption that anger predicts counterproductive workplace behavior (Grandey, 2008). Disappointment will also be unlikely to predict theft. When individuals experience disappointment, they typically forfeit unattainable goals or withdraw (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). As a result, disappointed individuals are more likely to quit or withdraw because although they expected a positive outcome, they have unmet expectations and feel powerless. This response suggests that disappointed individuals are unlikely to cope with this emotion by stealing. Based on the appraisal model, although we expect that unfair pay will elicit all three emotions, only envy will predict theft because individuals will steal to regain their threatened outcomes and reduce the gap with their envied other. 1.2. The moderating role of emotionality Even though individuals may vary in how they respond to unfairness (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001), there is still a lot of uncertainty as to what accounts for these variations. One personality trait in particular, emotionality, may be especially relevant to understand why individuals may be more or less inclined to engage in theft. Individuals high on emotionality tend to be oversensitive, emotional, anxious, and fearful, as opposed to those low on this trait that are tough, self-assured, and stable (Ashton & Lee, 2005; Ashton, Lee, & Goldberg, 2007; Lee & Ashton, 2005). This dimension is somewhat reminiscent but not fully captured in other personality models (e.g., Big Five) that have
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generally shown to have negligible effects on theft (Lee, Ashton, & de Vries, 2005). Emotionality is hypothesized to be an important individual characteristic based on conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989), which suggests that individuals seek to acquire and protect resources (e.g., material, social, personal) to avoid strain (i.e., adverse employee reactions). Personality traits may help aid in stress resistance because individuals see the world as occurring in their best interest and it reduces the impact that stressors have on their well-being. In this case, we predict that emotionality will help individuals cope with unfair pay whereby individuals with low emotionality scores will experience less envy as distributive justice decreases and engage in less theft as envy increases. 2. Method 2.1. Participants and procedure The total sample size was 160 undergraduate students from a medium-sized university. The average age of participants was 22 years old; 43% were male and 57% were female. A betweensubjects experimental design was used in which the amount of pay was manipulated. An experimental design that tests the appraisal model and COR theory is used to respond to calls for more laboratory experiments on this topic (e.g., Cohen-Charash & Mueller, 2007). Most of the existing literature uses questionnaires, cross-sectional data, and single source measures (Cohen-Charash & Byrne, 2008; Spector & Fox, 2002). An experimental design addresses these issues and is furthermore useful because it allows us to measure actual behavior rather than theft intentions (Colquitt, 2008; Colquitt & Zapata-Phelan, 2007). The amount of compensation was manipulated by informing participants that there was a typo in the study’s advertisement and even though other participants had been paid $20, the mistake was not realized until then, and that they would be paid $2. The participants then completed a questionnaire that included the remaining measures and task-related questions. The assistant then compensated participants by handing each participant an envelope containing change and informing participants to take their compensation and leave the rest in the envelope. The research assistant went out of the room while participants took their compensation; this was their opportunity to engage in theft. A unique number was written imperceptibly in pencil on the inside flap of the envelopes to link the amount of change left in the envelope with a unique identification number. After participants left the room, they were debriefed about the true purpose of the study. All participants relinquished the change that they had initially taken for themselves without divulging how much change had been taken, and were then fully compensated. Care was taken to emphasize the need to use deception to preserve the potential contributions of the research. Participants were informed that their responses were confidential because we used unique numeric identifiers. Contact information for the lead author and a counseling service were provided in case participants were distressed. 2.2. Measures Distributive justice was measured with three items (Greenberg, 1993). Participants rated each item on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) and 7 (extremely). This measure was chosen because it is most relevant to this particular study. We measured all twenty-six of the discrete emotions identified in the emotions scale developed by Weiss, Suckow, and Cropanzano (1999) in order to disguise the particular emotions being studied. Participants were given a list of discrete emotions
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that described how they might have felt after the task. The emotion rating scales ranged from 1 (not at all) and 7 (extremely). Envy was measured using the one-item subfacet of the emotions scale (Weiss et al., 1999). Spencer and Rupp (2009) used the scale by Weiss et al. (1999) as the basis for a multi-item anger scale, which we adopted in our study. We also used a multi-item scale developed by Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, and O’Connor (1987) to measure disappointment. Participants completed questions about their personality. We used the 60-item HEXACO-PI-R scale (Ashton & Lee, 2005) to measure emotionality because it is characterized by items such as fearlessness and it does not measure anger-related content like similar scales (e.g., Big Five; Ashton & Lee, 2005), which is salient to our study because anger was one of the possible mediators in our study. Participants rated each item on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). We controlled for gender, age, and negative affectivity because prior research shows that these variables influence the propensity to behave unethically and how individuals respond to negative events (Chen & Tang, 2006; Hollinger & Clark, 1983). Participants provided information about their gender (0 = male; 1 = female). Age was measured by asking participants for their year of birth. Negative affectivity was measured with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson & Clark, 1992). Theft was measured by dividing the amount that participants took by the amount that they were instructed to take. For example, if a participant in the $2 condition took $5, their theft magnitude is 2.5 ($5/$2). Because the purpose of the study was to assess the impact of high and low distributive justice conditions, we needed to take in consideration how much the participants were instructed to take.
the relationship between distributive justice and theft. The results show that participants who received unfair pay were more envious (b = .10, p < .05), disappointed (b = .16, p < .01), and angry (b = .20, p < .001), but only participants who experienced envy engaged in a higher magnitude of theft (b = .39, p < .001). Although low distributive justice elicited all three discrete emotions, only the mediating path between envy and theft was significant (90% CI [ .1275, .0006]), which supports hypothesis one. Hypothesis two predicted that emotionality would be a personal resource when individuals received unfair pay. Figs. 1 and 2 show the impact of emotionality between distributive justice and envy (b = .12, p < .10) and envy and theft (b = .88, p < .001), but we should note that the distributive justice–envy relationship approaches statistical significance. The results partially support hypothesis two because the graphed interaction between envy and theft was in the opposite direction than expected. 4. Discussion The present study used the appraisal model and COR theory to examine the mediating role of discrete emotions and the moderating effect of emotionality in predicting why people steal. The results indicate that individuals who are paid fairly experience less envy, anger, disappointment, and engage in less theft. Envy was shown to mediate the relationship between distributive justice and theft. There is also a moderating effect of emotionality on the distributive justice–envy and envy–theft relationships. Using an experimental design with an objective measure of theft and different sources to measure the independent and dependent variables enabled us to reduce potential common method bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). The findings of this study enrich our understanding of why individuals engage in theft, which is an important aspect in understanding how justice shapes organizational life (Weiss et al., 1999). Although scholars have suggested that emotions may have an important role in how individuals respond to justice, emotions have been rarely studied (Barclay et al., 2005). The results are consistent with calls for increased attention to discrete emotions, based on the premise that they each have different predictors and consequences depending on the emotion studied (e.g., Cohen-Charash & Byrne, 2008; Weiss et al., 1999). This finding has important implications for research on discrete emotions and theft. Even though individuals experienced multiple discrete emotions when they were paid unfairly, it was only envy that explained why individuals stole. Because anger tends to elicit a desire to retaliate (Lazarus, 1991), it may be associated with employee sabotage or workplace incivility, instead of theft. Furthermore, disappointment has been shown to lead to withdrawal or forfeiting
3. Results Descriptive statistics, internal reliabilities, and correlation coefficients are reported in Table 1. An independent samples t-test shows a significant difference in theft for the underpaid (M = 1.48, SD = 1.31) and equitably paid (M = 1.01, SD = 0.20) conditions; t(158) = 3.31, p < .01. Almost one in three individuals (31.5%) stole in the underpaid condition, whereas one in five participants (20.7%) stole in the equitably paid condition. The hypotheses were tested with the PROCESS macro version 2.04 from Hayes (2013) that uses ordinary least square to estimate conditional indirect effects in moderated mediation models. We used bootstrapping to calculate the 90% confidence intervals (5000 resamples) to assess the significance of the indirect effects. Our first hypothesis proposed that although distributive justice will negatively predict envy, disappointment, and anger, only envy would mediate
Table 1 Means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliability estimates for the study variables.a
*
Variable
N
Mean
s.d.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
155 155 156 158 155 144 159 159 160
4.32 1.82 2.03 1.37 3.2 1.85 22 .57 1.23
1.97 1.09 1.27 1.01 .62 .67 4.11 .50 .92
(.96) .30** .23** .21* .01 .05 .04 .14 .26**
(.95) .73** .63** .00 .15 .09 .08 .21**
(.85) .53** .09 .09 .03 .04 .20*
– .12 .11 .02 .02 .30**
(.73) .15 .04 .45** .06
(.94) .22** .01 .02
– .05 .01
–
Distributive justice Anger Disappointment Envy Emotionality Negative affectivity Age Gender Theft
.04
p < .05. ** p < .01. a Gender was coded as 0 = male or 1 = female. Theft was measured by dividing the amount of compensation taken by the amount that participants were instructed to take such that if participants took the instructed amount, their theft magnitude was 1.0. Alpha reliabilities appear along the diagonal where applicable.
Envy
C.L. Wilkin, C.E. Connelly / Personality and Individual Differences 72 (2015) 160–164
Low Emotional High Emotional
Justice
Theft
Fig. 1. Emotionality Interaction between the distributive justice–envy relationship.
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organizations need to temporarily reduce employee compensation, all employees should incur some type of loss and managers must further consider how pay reductions are allocated, because a uniform strategy may harm high performers. Regardless of the strategy adopted, if organizations choose to reduce compensation, the strategy needs to be applied consistently, bearing in mind performance differences, because the unequal treatment of groups further promotes feelings of envy. This strategy may seem simplistic, but in practice it is often ignored. For example, employees may absorb pay cuts while managers still receive bonuses, or one group of employees may experience pay cuts while another does not. These situations would be likely to spark feelings of envy, which may result in increased theft. Although human resource managers have often screened job applicants for desirable personality traits, in the hopes that it reduces theft levels, this practice has not been without controversy (e.g., Mersman & Shultz, 1998). The results of our study are consistent with prior research on applicant screening because the literature suggests that theft may be reduced through pre-employment screening for personality traits. Selecting employees with respect to their emotionality is especially important for occupations that are not highly defined or scripted, in effect where personality traits are more likely to emerge. 4.2. Potential limitations and future directions
Low Emotional High Emotional
Envy Fig. 2. Emotionality interaction between the envy–theft relationship.
unattainable goals (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987), so this discrete emotion may predict withdrawal behaviors such as lateness, absence, and turnover, instead of theft. The findings show that individuals also vary in how they respond to low levels of justice due to differences in their personality traits. Consistent with COR theory, emotionality is a personal resource to help individuals cope with unfair pay by experiencing less envy but contrary to our expectations, individuals low on emotionality engaged in more theft as envy increased. A possible explanation is that individuals high on emotionality may be anxious and fearful of being caught stealing, even in anonymous conditions, so as a result, they are less likely to steal. Finally, it is noteworthy to mention that individuals stole in both the fair and unfair conditions. Approximately one in three individuals stole in the underpaid condition, whereas one in five participants stole in the fair condition. This finding may be explained by the tendency of many individuals to cheat by a small amount, especially when there is a low chance of detection, because they weigh the potential costs of getting caught against the financial benefits of engaging in the behavior (Ariely, 2012). Indeed, even the illusion of anonymity increases unethical behaviors (e.g., Zhong, Bohns, & Gino, 2010). Although individuals who consider themselves as honest tend to cheat less (Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2010), in fact many individuals cheat (Ariely, 2012). 4.1. Practical implications Our study suggests that organizations need to pay close attention to inequity because it may affect their employees’ emotions and behaviors. One way to reduce feelings of envy is for organizations to pay attention to how they reduce compensation. If
One potential limitation of our study is that the somewhat artificial nature of a laboratory experiment may limit the extent to which findings are generalizable to a field setting (Reeve, Highhouse, & Brooks, 2006). However, there have, nonetheless, been several calls for more experimental research, in order to identify the role of emotions in predicting behaviors (e.g., CohenCharash & Mueller, 2007; Yang & Diefendorff, 2009). Future research should attempt to replicate the study in a longitudinal field setting to have greater ecological validity in a natural context. Another potential limitation arises from using student samples. Even though prior research on theft has also used students for their samples (e.g., Greenberg, 1993; Kennedy, Homant, & Homant, 2004; Umphress, Ren, Bingham, & Gogus, 2009), there are some theoretical reasons to suggest that the emotional mechanisms of students may differ from those of employees. A reduced ability to control their emotions may explain why younger employees are more likely to engage in theft (e.g., Hollinger & Clark, 1983). Because workplace theft is a common and costly occurrence (Greenberg & Barling, 1996; Wimbush & Dalton, 1997), it behooves us to consider ways in which it can be reduced. Another potential limitation is that envy was measured using a one-item scale. Although this measure has been used in other published studies (e.g., Krehbiel & Cropanzano, 2000; Weiss et al., 1999), future research is needed to replicate the findings using a multi-item measure of envy. We focused on theft but envy may also affect other counterproductive workplace behaviors such as taking longer breaks or ‘‘time theft,’’ or interpersonal deviance such as hiding information (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Future research is needed to understand how discrete emotions affect the relationship between other types of organizational justice and unethical behaviors. 5. Conclusion This study enriches our understanding of the process by which distributive justice affects theft. We examined the role of discrete emotions and personality traits in predicting why people steal. The results help us understand the consequences of low distributive justice and ways in which we can reduce theft in the workplace.
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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Green with envy and nerves of steel: Moderated mediation between distributive justice and theft q Christa L. Wilkin a,⇑, Catherine E. Connelly b,1 a b
York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4M4, Canada
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 5 November 2013 Received in revised form 25 August 2014 Accepted 30 August 2014 Available online 26 September 2014 Keywords: Appraisal model Counterproductive work behavior Distributive justice Emotion Personality Resources
a b s t r a c t The relationship between distributive justice and theft is well established, but the underlying mechanism for this relationship is not yet well understood. We expect that the discrete emotions that individuals experience when they have been paid unfairly may influence how they behave and their personality traits help them cope with unfair pay. In the present study, we therefore use the appraisal model to examine which discrete emotion (i.e., anger, disappointment, and envy) mediates the relationship between distributive justice and theft and conservation of resources theory to examine how emotionality is a personal resource that varies among individuals to help them cope with unfair pay. Participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition where we manipulated the fairness of the pay that they received, measured the discrete emotions that they felt after being informed of their pay, and objectively measured how much they stole. The results indicate that envy mediates the relationship between distributive justice and theft and there is a moderating effect of emotionality on distributive justice and envy; and envy and theft. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Workplace theft is particularly problematic in today’s economic climate because some organizations are temporarily reducing their labor costs through salary cuts, freezes, and reduced variable pay (Kennedy, 2003). Depending on how they are conducted, these cost-cutting approaches may elicit perceptions of an unfair distribution of resources or low levels of distributive justice, which may lead employees to steal or to take organizational property without authorization (Greenberg, 1993). Scholars have long acknowledged that emotions have an important role in how individuals respond to low levels of justice (Barclay, Skarlicki, & Pugh, 2005). Emotions are also an important mechanism in predicting unethical behavior because individuals often seek to relieve emotional distress from inequity by engaging in dishonesty (Gino q The authors are grateful for the research funding provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada. The research was conducted as a part of Christa L. Wilkin’s doctoral dissertation. We thank Drs. Sandra Robinson, Willi Wiesner, and Aaron Schat for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. A preliminary version of this manuscript was presented at the Society for Industrial Organizational Psychology Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA (2012). ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 416 736 2100. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (C.L. Wilkin), [email protected] (C.E. Connelly). 1 Tel.: +1 905 525 9140x23954.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.08.039 0191-8869/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
& Pierce, 2009). Although justice theories often discuss emotions, the mediating role of discrete emotions is largely underresearched (Barclay et al., 2005; De Cremer & van den Bos, 2007). Discrete emotions are unique emotional states that include specific emotions such as envy and anger (Barrett, 1998; Izard, 2007). There has been some debate about which emotions arise from low distributive justice (e.g., Bembenek, Beike, & Schroeder, 2007). Some authors suggest that anger is a typical response (e.g., Homans, 1961), but other authors disagree and suggest that low levels of distributive justice lead to disappointment (e.g., Bembenek et al., 2007). It has also been proposed that individuals experience envy when they make social comparisons with others about fairness (Cohen-Charash & Byrne, 2008; Smith, Parrott, Ozer, & Moniz, 1994). Researchers have also called for more studies that investigate how different individuals respond to and recover from violations to their perceptions of justice (e.g., Barclay & Skarlicki, 2009), which may indicate that there are personality differences that help individuals cope with low distributive justice. The purpose of our study is to therefore examine the role of discrete emotions and personality traits in predicting why people steal, which was disguised by informing participants that the study was about how personality traits affect user performance on websites. The participants first completed a survey on their personality and demographic variables before performing a computer task that involved browsing through websites with various layouts.
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Following the computer task, the research assistant manipulated the amount of compensation given. Participants in the high distributive justice condition were paid the advertised amount of $20 whereas those in the low distributive justice group were originally told that they would be paid $20, but then later told that they would only receive $2. 1.1. The mediating role of discrete emotions The appraisal model refers to a cognitive process that individuals use to interpret or appraise events by evaluating their goals and coping resources (Frijda, 1987; Lazarus, 1991). Based on these appraisals, there are unique consequences to each discrete emotion depending on how individuals cope with their emotions (e.g., Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). Theft may be motivated by both the desire to retaliate against organizations and the desire to restore equity (Greenberg, 1996). However, an important determinant of whether individuals steal to retaliate or to restore equity depends on the justice conditions. Low levels of distributive justice have been shown to predict equity restoration behaviors, whereas retaliation behaviors occur as a result of other types of injustice (Ambrose, Seabright, & Schminke, 2002). Consequently, individuals in our study will be more likely to steal because of the desire to restore equity because we are examining the relationships in the context of low distributive justice. The discrete emotion of envy will predict theft because the goal of envious individuals is to restore equity or reduce their gap with envied others (Ben-Ze’ev, 1992; Heider, 1958). As such, envy may elicit theft because engaging in this behavior can help individuals by regulating their emotions, equalizing the outcomes between the envious and the envied, and protecting the self-esteem of envious individuals (Cohen-Charash & Mueller, 2007). At first glance, a similar discrete emotion of anger may seem related to theft but studies have shown that the relationship is weak. Anger tends to elicit aggressive behaviors to regain threatened outcomes and creates a desire to retaliate (Ganem, 2010; Levine, 1996; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). Indeed, empirical studies show that anger is weakly related to theft (r = .12; Chen & Spector, 1992). As such, we need to more closely examine the assumption that anger predicts counterproductive workplace behavior (Grandey, 2008). Disappointment will also be unlikely to predict theft. When individuals experience disappointment, they typically forfeit unattainable goals or withdraw (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). As a result, disappointed individuals are more likely to quit or withdraw because although they expected a positive outcome, they have unmet expectations and feel powerless. This response suggests that disappointed individuals are unlikely to cope with this emotion by stealing. Based on the appraisal model, although we expect that unfair pay will elicit all three emotions, only envy will predict theft because individuals will steal to regain their threatened outcomes and reduce the gap with their envied other. 1.2. The moderating role of emotionality Even though individuals may vary in how they respond to unfairness (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001), there is still a lot of uncertainty as to what accounts for these variations. One personality trait in particular, emotionality, may be especially relevant to understand why individuals may be more or less inclined to engage in theft. Individuals high on emotionality tend to be oversensitive, emotional, anxious, and fearful, as opposed to those low on this trait that are tough, self-assured, and stable (Ashton & Lee, 2005; Ashton, Lee, & Goldberg, 2007; Lee & Ashton, 2005). This dimension is somewhat reminiscent but not fully captured in other personality models (e.g., Big Five) that have
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generally shown to have negligible effects on theft (Lee, Ashton, & de Vries, 2005). Emotionality is hypothesized to be an important individual characteristic based on conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989), which suggests that individuals seek to acquire and protect resources (e.g., material, social, personal) to avoid strain (i.e., adverse employee reactions). Personality traits may help aid in stress resistance because individuals see the world as occurring in their best interest and it reduces the impact that stressors have on their well-being. In this case, we predict that emotionality will help individuals cope with unfair pay whereby individuals with low emotionality scores will experience less envy as distributive justice decreases and engage in less theft as envy increases. 2. Method 2.1. Participants and procedure The total sample size was 160 undergraduate students from a medium-sized university. The average age of participants was 22 years old; 43% were male and 57% were female. A betweensubjects experimental design was used in which the amount of pay was manipulated. An experimental design that tests the appraisal model and COR theory is used to respond to calls for more laboratory experiments on this topic (e.g., Cohen-Charash & Mueller, 2007). Most of the existing literature uses questionnaires, cross-sectional data, and single source measures (Cohen-Charash & Byrne, 2008; Spector & Fox, 2002). An experimental design addresses these issues and is furthermore useful because it allows us to measure actual behavior rather than theft intentions (Colquitt, 2008; Colquitt & Zapata-Phelan, 2007). The amount of compensation was manipulated by informing participants that there was a typo in the study’s advertisement and even though other participants had been paid $20, the mistake was not realized until then, and that they would be paid $2. The participants then completed a questionnaire that included the remaining measures and task-related questions. The assistant then compensated participants by handing each participant an envelope containing change and informing participants to take their compensation and leave the rest in the envelope. The research assistant went out of the room while participants took their compensation; this was their opportunity to engage in theft. A unique number was written imperceptibly in pencil on the inside flap of the envelopes to link the amount of change left in the envelope with a unique identification number. After participants left the room, they were debriefed about the true purpose of the study. All participants relinquished the change that they had initially taken for themselves without divulging how much change had been taken, and were then fully compensated. Care was taken to emphasize the need to use deception to preserve the potential contributions of the research. Participants were informed that their responses were confidential because we used unique numeric identifiers. Contact information for the lead author and a counseling service were provided in case participants were distressed. 2.2. Measures Distributive justice was measured with three items (Greenberg, 1993). Participants rated each item on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) and 7 (extremely). This measure was chosen because it is most relevant to this particular study. We measured all twenty-six of the discrete emotions identified in the emotions scale developed by Weiss, Suckow, and Cropanzano (1999) in order to disguise the particular emotions being studied. Participants were given a list of discrete emotions
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that described how they might have felt after the task. The emotion rating scales ranged from 1 (not at all) and 7 (extremely). Envy was measured using the one-item subfacet of the emotions scale (Weiss et al., 1999). Spencer and Rupp (2009) used the scale by Weiss et al. (1999) as the basis for a multi-item anger scale, which we adopted in our study. We also used a multi-item scale developed by Shaver, Schwartz, Kirson, and O’Connor (1987) to measure disappointment. Participants completed questions about their personality. We used the 60-item HEXACO-PI-R scale (Ashton & Lee, 2005) to measure emotionality because it is characterized by items such as fearlessness and it does not measure anger-related content like similar scales (e.g., Big Five; Ashton & Lee, 2005), which is salient to our study because anger was one of the possible mediators in our study. Participants rated each item on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree). We controlled for gender, age, and negative affectivity because prior research shows that these variables influence the propensity to behave unethically and how individuals respond to negative events (Chen & Tang, 2006; Hollinger & Clark, 1983). Participants provided information about their gender (0 = male; 1 = female). Age was measured by asking participants for their year of birth. Negative affectivity was measured with the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Watson & Clark, 1992). Theft was measured by dividing the amount that participants took by the amount that they were instructed to take. For example, if a participant in the $2 condition took $5, their theft magnitude is 2.5 ($5/$2). Because the purpose of the study was to assess the impact of high and low distributive justice conditions, we needed to take in consideration how much the participants were instructed to take.
the relationship between distributive justice and theft. The results show that participants who received unfair pay were more envious (b = .10, p < .05), disappointed (b = .16, p < .01), and angry (b = .20, p < .001), but only participants who experienced envy engaged in a higher magnitude of theft (b = .39, p < .001). Although low distributive justice elicited all three discrete emotions, only the mediating path between envy and theft was significant (90% CI [ .1275, .0006]), which supports hypothesis one. Hypothesis two predicted that emotionality would be a personal resource when individuals received unfair pay. Figs. 1 and 2 show the impact of emotionality between distributive justice and envy (b = .12, p < .10) and envy and theft (b = .88, p < .001), but we should note that the distributive justice–envy relationship approaches statistical significance. The results partially support hypothesis two because the graphed interaction between envy and theft was in the opposite direction than expected. 4. Discussion The present study used the appraisal model and COR theory to examine the mediating role of discrete emotions and the moderating effect of emotionality in predicting why people steal. The results indicate that individuals who are paid fairly experience less envy, anger, disappointment, and engage in less theft. Envy was shown to mediate the relationship between distributive justice and theft. There is also a moderating effect of emotionality on the distributive justice–envy and envy–theft relationships. Using an experimental design with an objective measure of theft and different sources to measure the independent and dependent variables enabled us to reduce potential common method bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). The findings of this study enrich our understanding of why individuals engage in theft, which is an important aspect in understanding how justice shapes organizational life (Weiss et al., 1999). Although scholars have suggested that emotions may have an important role in how individuals respond to justice, emotions have been rarely studied (Barclay et al., 2005). The results are consistent with calls for increased attention to discrete emotions, based on the premise that they each have different predictors and consequences depending on the emotion studied (e.g., Cohen-Charash & Byrne, 2008; Weiss et al., 1999). This finding has important implications for research on discrete emotions and theft. Even though individuals experienced multiple discrete emotions when they were paid unfairly, it was only envy that explained why individuals stole. Because anger tends to elicit a desire to retaliate (Lazarus, 1991), it may be associated with employee sabotage or workplace incivility, instead of theft. Furthermore, disappointment has been shown to lead to withdrawal or forfeiting
3. Results Descriptive statistics, internal reliabilities, and correlation coefficients are reported in Table 1. An independent samples t-test shows a significant difference in theft for the underpaid (M = 1.48, SD = 1.31) and equitably paid (M = 1.01, SD = 0.20) conditions; t(158) = 3.31, p < .01. Almost one in three individuals (31.5%) stole in the underpaid condition, whereas one in five participants (20.7%) stole in the equitably paid condition. The hypotheses were tested with the PROCESS macro version 2.04 from Hayes (2013) that uses ordinary least square to estimate conditional indirect effects in moderated mediation models. We used bootstrapping to calculate the 90% confidence intervals (5000 resamples) to assess the significance of the indirect effects. Our first hypothesis proposed that although distributive justice will negatively predict envy, disappointment, and anger, only envy would mediate
Table 1 Means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliability estimates for the study variables.a
*
Variable
N
Mean
s.d.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
155 155 156 158 155 144 159 159 160
4.32 1.82 2.03 1.37 3.2 1.85 22 .57 1.23
1.97 1.09 1.27 1.01 .62 .67 4.11 .50 .92
(.96) .30** .23** .21* .01 .05 .04 .14 .26**
(.95) .73** .63** .00 .15 .09 .08 .21**
(.85) .53** .09 .09 .03 .04 .20*
– .12 .11 .02 .02 .30**
(.73) .15 .04 .45** .06
(.94) .22** .01 .02
– .05 .01
–
Distributive justice Anger Disappointment Envy Emotionality Negative affectivity Age Gender Theft
.04
p < .05. ** p < .01. a Gender was coded as 0 = male or 1 = female. Theft was measured by dividing the amount of compensation taken by the amount that participants were instructed to take such that if participants took the instructed amount, their theft magnitude was 1.0. Alpha reliabilities appear along the diagonal where applicable.
Envy
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Low Emotional High Emotional
Justice
Theft
Fig. 1. Emotionality Interaction between the distributive justice–envy relationship.
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organizations need to temporarily reduce employee compensation, all employees should incur some type of loss and managers must further consider how pay reductions are allocated, because a uniform strategy may harm high performers. Regardless of the strategy adopted, if organizations choose to reduce compensation, the strategy needs to be applied consistently, bearing in mind performance differences, because the unequal treatment of groups further promotes feelings of envy. This strategy may seem simplistic, but in practice it is often ignored. For example, employees may absorb pay cuts while managers still receive bonuses, or one group of employees may experience pay cuts while another does not. These situations would be likely to spark feelings of envy, which may result in increased theft. Although human resource managers have often screened job applicants for desirable personality traits, in the hopes that it reduces theft levels, this practice has not been without controversy (e.g., Mersman & Shultz, 1998). The results of our study are consistent with prior research on applicant screening because the literature suggests that theft may be reduced through pre-employment screening for personality traits. Selecting employees with respect to their emotionality is especially important for occupations that are not highly defined or scripted, in effect where personality traits are more likely to emerge. 4.2. Potential limitations and future directions
Low Emotional High Emotional
Envy Fig. 2. Emotionality interaction between the envy–theft relationship.
unattainable goals (Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987), so this discrete emotion may predict withdrawal behaviors such as lateness, absence, and turnover, instead of theft. The findings show that individuals also vary in how they respond to low levels of justice due to differences in their personality traits. Consistent with COR theory, emotionality is a personal resource to help individuals cope with unfair pay by experiencing less envy but contrary to our expectations, individuals low on emotionality engaged in more theft as envy increased. A possible explanation is that individuals high on emotionality may be anxious and fearful of being caught stealing, even in anonymous conditions, so as a result, they are less likely to steal. Finally, it is noteworthy to mention that individuals stole in both the fair and unfair conditions. Approximately one in three individuals stole in the underpaid condition, whereas one in five participants stole in the fair condition. This finding may be explained by the tendency of many individuals to cheat by a small amount, especially when there is a low chance of detection, because they weigh the potential costs of getting caught against the financial benefits of engaging in the behavior (Ariely, 2012). Indeed, even the illusion of anonymity increases unethical behaviors (e.g., Zhong, Bohns, & Gino, 2010). Although individuals who consider themselves as honest tend to cheat less (Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2010), in fact many individuals cheat (Ariely, 2012). 4.1. Practical implications Our study suggests that organizations need to pay close attention to inequity because it may affect their employees’ emotions and behaviors. One way to reduce feelings of envy is for organizations to pay attention to how they reduce compensation. If
One potential limitation of our study is that the somewhat artificial nature of a laboratory experiment may limit the extent to which findings are generalizable to a field setting (Reeve, Highhouse, & Brooks, 2006). However, there have, nonetheless, been several calls for more experimental research, in order to identify the role of emotions in predicting behaviors (e.g., CohenCharash & Mueller, 2007; Yang & Diefendorff, 2009). Future research should attempt to replicate the study in a longitudinal field setting to have greater ecological validity in a natural context. Another potential limitation arises from using student samples. Even though prior research on theft has also used students for their samples (e.g., Greenberg, 1993; Kennedy, Homant, & Homant, 2004; Umphress, Ren, Bingham, & Gogus, 2009), there are some theoretical reasons to suggest that the emotional mechanisms of students may differ from those of employees. A reduced ability to control their emotions may explain why younger employees are more likely to engage in theft (e.g., Hollinger & Clark, 1983). Because workplace theft is a common and costly occurrence (Greenberg & Barling, 1996; Wimbush & Dalton, 1997), it behooves us to consider ways in which it can be reduced. Another potential limitation is that envy was measured using a one-item scale. Although this measure has been used in other published studies (e.g., Krehbiel & Cropanzano, 2000; Weiss et al., 1999), future research is needed to replicate the findings using a multi-item measure of envy. We focused on theft but envy may also affect other counterproductive workplace behaviors such as taking longer breaks or ‘‘time theft,’’ or interpersonal deviance such as hiding information (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Future research is needed to understand how discrete emotions affect the relationship between other types of organizational justice and unethical behaviors. 5. Conclusion This study enriches our understanding of the process by which distributive justice affects theft. We examined the role of discrete emotions and personality traits in predicting why people steal. The results help us understand the consequences of low distributive justice and ways in which we can reduce theft in the workplace.
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