Is virtue its own reward? Self-sacrificial decisions for the sake of fairness

Witnessing wrongdoing: The effects of observer power on incivility intervention in the workplace

“…Similarly, Turillo, Folger, Lavelle, Umpress, and Gee (2002) found that observers are willing to punish the perpetrator, even at a personal cost to themselves. However, such forms of "vigilante" justice can be counterproductive, because they may cause incivility to spread and escalate (Andersson & Pearson, 1999).…”

Subtle Discrimination in the Workplace: A Vicious Cycle

“…Here, participants witnessed a confederate subtly discriminate against another confederate through negative body positioning, vocal tones, and undermining the person's ideas in an uncivil manner. Some scholars have suggested that bystanders may punish perpetrators for violating justice norms (O'Reilly, Aquino, & Skarlicki, 2016;Turillo, Folger, Lavelle, Umphress, & Gee, 2002), which can occur through a variety of ways, including retaliation, ostracism, neglect, and negative affect toward perpetrators (Reich & Hershcovis, 2015;Schmader et al, 2012;Smart & Leary, 2009;Turillo et al, 2002). However, it has been shown that punishing or retaliating against a perpetrator of subtle discrimination does not lead to increased positive affect toward the target of the discriminatory remark.…”

Observing workplace incivility.

“…First, our focus on observer responses to targets is important. Previous research on third-party reactions to mistreatment and injustice has focused almost exclusively on observers' own well-being (e.g., Schat & Kelloway, 2003) or their punishment of the instigator (e.g., Turillo et al, 2002). We are aware of only one study that has examined observers' compensatory responses to targets of injustice (Lotz et al, 2011), and that study examined an overt incident of distributive injustice.…”

“…Specifically, this range allowed us to emphasize the ostensible participants' dislike for the key allocation task (i.e., their ostensible rating of 3/21, which was subsequently provided to the participant). 4 According to Turillo, Folger, Lavelle, Umphress, and Gee (2002), although third-parties to injustice are motivated to engage in retributive behavior toward a justice rule violator, they may be unwilling to do so if it means that they have to behave unjustly themselves. To account for the possibility that observers would not punish the instigator if it meant that the observer had to behave unfairly (i.e., allocating keys unevenly), we manipulated the number of recipients the observer was able to allocate to in Study 1.…”