NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THIRD PARTY PERCEPTIONS OF MISTREATMENT

Warren Lee Cook

This three-essay dissertation investigates how the experience of witnessing workplace mistreatment (e.g. incivility, injustice) influences the perceptions and behaviors of third-party observers. I also explore how the influence of observing mistreatment varies based on individual differences (e.g. social identity, conception of morality) among third parties. To examine this phenomenon, I have developed a theoretical model and conducted two empirical studies. The first essay is a theoretical work in which I propose that when third parties witness mistreatment and do nothing, the cognitive mechanisms often employed to resolve internal conflict are likely to have lasting effects on the way that third parties perceive future mistreatment in their environment. These effects are likely to be associated with behavioral changes that perpetuate a pattern of mistreatment and potentially allow for mistreatment to intensify. Furthermore, I suggest that rationalization is more likely to take place given a status difference between victim and instigator, and when social identity is shared between the observer and victim. The second essay examines how third-party evaluation of work-related consequences for off-duty behavior is influenced by the third party’s idiosyncratic prioritization of fundamental moral values. This study finds that when a person is fired for violating a specific moral value, the extent to which the third party is sensitive to the violated value predicts the third party’s perceived fairness of the firing, and their intent to take retributive action against the manager responsible for the firing. Additionally, this study finds that the presence of a pre-existing code of conduct prohibiting off-duty deviance causes observers to see the firing as fairer. The third essay investigates how third-party observation of incivility between coworkers influences evaluation of the instigator, the victim, and one’s workplace. This study finds that observing incivility is associated with seeing the victim as having less workplace status. I also find that observing incivility is associated with a more pessimistic forecast of one’s own future experience of interpersonal justice in that same workplace.

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON THIRD PARTY PERCEPTIONS OF MISTREATMENT

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