The money or the morals? When moral language is more effective for selling social issues.

Mayer, David M.; Ong, Madeline; Sonenshein, Scott; Ashford, Susan J.

doi:10.1037/apl0000388

Cited by 49 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 107 publications

(190 reference statements)

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“…If an organization has expressed a commitment to diversity and inclusion, then leveraging this prior commitment may help convince business leaders that protected class information should be considered at the outset of one's work. Indeed, three field studies and an experiment by Mayer, Ong, Sonenshein, and Ashford (2019) suggests that when organizations have expressed a commitment to diversity and inclusion, obliging moral action (i.e., asking what an organization with a commitment to diversity and inclusion should do) could help sell these issues to business leaders.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disparate treatment and adverse impact in applied attrition modeling

Castille

2019

Ind. Organ. Psychol.

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Speer and colleagues (2019) provide an excellent overview of key practices on applied attrition modeling. With our commentary, we wish to elaborate on a decision point Speer and colleagues left open in the development of attrition models, namely the decision to examine protected classification information. Our contribution seems particularly relevant given popular press discussions regarding discriminatory employment activities enacted via artificial intelligence. For instance, Amazon developed an algorithm with the purpose of recruiting job candidates with the highest potential. Unfortunately, the process resulted in a bias against female candidates that could not be remedied in a timely fashion resulting in leaders terminating the project (Dastin, 2018). Our concern is that a similar outcome might result here if biases against protected classes are not examined thoroughly. Unfortunately, while there is value in studying protected classes and their relation to turnover, we have observed that legal teams might resist people analytics teams' efforts to examine protected classes in projects such as the development of attrition models, and so we hope to speak to those practitioners who are facing such an obstacle. Therefore, with our commentary, we call attention to what has in our observation been a problem in practice: gaining permission to analyze protected class information on employees in building attrition models. Drawing upon the adverse impact and disparate treatment literature, we highlight how both including and failing to acknowledge the role of protected class information can introduce legal

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disparate treatment and adverse impact in applied attrition modeling

Castille

2019

Ind. Organ. Psychol.

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“…For example, recent research finds that moral language is more persuasive than economic language (i.e. monetary arguments) to influence company management on important social issues faced by employees (Mayer, Ong, Sonenshein, & Ashford, 2019). That is, presenting arguments framed in moral terms as opposed to economic terms is more effective in mobilizing decision-makers on social issues such as employee health, gender equality, and wage policies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why moral advocacy leads to polarization and proselytization: The role of self-persuasion

Abeywickrama

Rhee

Crone

et al. 2020

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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This research is the first to examine the effects of moral versus practical pro-attitudinal advocacy in the context of self-persuasion. We validate a novel advocacy paradigm aimed at uncovering why moral advocacy leads to polarization and proselytization. We investigate four distinct possibilities: (1) expression of moral foundational values (harm, fairness, loyalty, authority, purity), (2) reliance on moral systems (deontology and consequentialism), (3) expression of moral outrage, (4) increased confidence in one’s advocacy attempt. In Study 1 (N = 255) we find differences between moral and practical advocacy on the five moral foundations, deontology, and moral outrage. In Study 2 (N = 218) we replicate these differences, but find that only the expression of moral foundations is consequential in predicting attitude polarization. In Study 3 (N = 115) we replicate the effect of moral foundations on proselytization. Our findings suggest that practical compared to moral advocacy may attenuate polarization and proselytization. This carries implications for how advocacy can be re-framed in ways which minimize social conflict.

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“…Organizations regularly call on their employees to adopt new behaviors that can improve organizational functioning. While organizations have many ways of directing behavior, they often seek to do so by expressing their values (Mayer et al 2019). That is, organizations communicate the underlying motive, rationale, and importance of a new behavior to promote its adoption.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

True Motives: Prosocial and Instrumental Justifications for Behavioral Change in Organizations

Amengual

Apfelbaum

2021

Management Science

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When organizations want their employees to adopt behaviors that advance prosocial and instrumental aims, which motive should they express? A groundswell of recent work suggests that highlighting prosocial actions inspires and motivates employees. Building on this work, we embed a field experiment in the context of an organizational change initiative (Study 1). A large university sought to change the behavior of administrative employees who purchase office supplies, encouraging them to place orders of at least $50, referred to as “bundling.” We exploit the fact that the organization could justify the same behavior in contrasting ways. We randomly assign employees to view either a prosocial (“limiting pollution”), instrumental (“limiting costs”), or mixed motive (“limiting pollution and limiting costs”) for caring about bundling each time they access the organization’s procurement system. We then evaluate changes in employees’ behavior by comparing a six-month baseline to a six-month experimental period, covering 10,169 purchases in 556 offices. Contrary to expectations from related research, the instrumental motive was most effective for changing behavior, leading to significantly more bundling than the prosocial motive. Two follow-up vignette experiments probe theoretical mechanisms. They indicate that an instrumental motive seems more genuine (i.e., reflecting the organization’s true motive) than a prosocial motive (Study 2) and that seeming genuine increases individuals’ intention to bundle (Study 3). This research reveals that prosocial justifications can be less effective than instrumental ones and suggests that perceptions of genuineness may shape the effectiveness of behavioral change efforts in organizations. This paper was accepted by Yuval Rottenstreich, decision analysis.

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The money or the morals? When moral language is more effective for selling social issues.

Cited by 49 publications

References 107 publications

Disparate treatment and adverse impact in applied attrition modeling

Disparate treatment and adverse impact in applied attrition modeling

Why moral advocacy leads to polarization and proselytization: The role of self-persuasion

True Motives: Prosocial and Instrumental Justifications for Behavioral Change in Organizations

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