Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences

Openness/Intellect is a basic personality trait describing the tendency to be curious and imaginative. Although these cognitive exploration tendencies are not inherently other-regarding, and open people are not disposed toward prosociality in general, Openness/Intellect has at least some important but underappreciated prosocial correlates (e.g., Parks-Leduc, Feldman, & Bardi, 2014; Sibley & Duckitt, 2008; Soutter, Bates, & Mottus, 2020), suggesting the potential moral significance of this trait may have been overlooked. In this thesis, I aimed to clarify whether and in what ways Openness/Intellect is a morally significant personality trait through assessing its associations with specific forms of prosociality that are likely to benefit from cognitive exploration proclivities. In Stream One, I explored (Study 1; N = 119) then sought to confirm (Studies 2-4; combined N = 987) an ostensible association between Openness/Intellect and cooperative behaviour, a major subtype of prosociality that involves coordinating with others toward mutual goals. Cooperativeness was operationalised using the Public Goods Game, a behavioural paradigm that strips cooperation to its elementary components. Despite finding a sizeable correlation in my exploratory study, Openness/Intellect shared only a very modest (though nonnull) correlation with cooperative behaviour across my confirmatory studies, suggesting open people are not meaningfully disposed toward cooperativeness in its most elementary form. After introducing the concept of moral exceptionality, in Stream Two (Studies 1-3; combined N = 3,003) I turned to the question of whether Openness/Intellect—in combination with the more explicitly prosocial trait Agreeableness—can account for individual differences in the tendency to show regard for others in ways that are flexible and inclusive (vs. rigid or parochial). Results revealed that such morally exceptional expressions of prosociality can be summarised and measured as a trait—enlightened compassion—that correlates strongly with Openness (an aspect of Openness/Intellect) as well as Compassion (an aspect of Agreeableness), thereby constituting an interstitial facet of the Openness/Intellect and Agreeableness domains. Together, the results from Streams One and Two suggest that although Openness/Intellect is not robustly associated with more elementary expressions of prosocial behaviour, open people are likely to think, feel, and desire in more prosocial ways under circumstances that involve transcending the boundaries of parochialism. To the extent that this enlightened compassionate orientation translates into actual behaviour, open people can be said to exhibit a kind of moral exceptionality.

A vast number of studies in different domains (e.g., workplace, educational, sports, among others) have demonstrated that moral disengagement is one the strongest predictors of unethical behaviour. By and large, moral disengagement comprises a suite of social cognitive mechanisms that operates by disconnecting people from their ethical standards so they can justify acting unethically and therefore avoid self-sanctions. Research has adopted a multilevel approach in the exploration of the antecedents of moral disengagement. For instance, a recent review of moral disengagement at the workplace proposed a distribution of several antecedents at three different levels of analysis: organizational, team/group, and individual. Within the individual level of analysis, research has explored, among many other factors, the role of Big Five personality domains on moral disengagement. Briefly, that research has highlighted the associations between domains agreeableness, conscientiousness (both negative), neuroticism (positive), and moral disengagement. Nonetheless, most of these studies have lacked designs that include a more comprehensive account of variables (e.g., confounders). In addition, that research do not take into account more complex models of Big Five personality factors that comprise, for instance, within-domains aspects that, if included, would help to better characterize the specific contribution of different features of each domain to moral disengagement. Additionally, research on moral disengagement and unethical behaviour has been mainly conducted in settings in which people are motivated by self-serving goals. One common goal people pursue in such contexts is higher status which, in turn, is based on social comparison processes. Hence, it is reasonable to think that to the extent people morally disengage to behave unethically in the pursuit of increasing their perceived status, social comparison processes would play a key role. Nevertheless, research on social comparison processes as antecedents of moral disengagement and unethical behaviour is scarce. One approach to explore this is the study of social comparison emotions as potential antecedents of moral disengagement. Furthermore, we centre on two social comparison emotions that are commonly found in competitive settings in which antisocial conduct has been usually found: envy and pride. Lastly, we focus mainly on trait envy and pride as we interested in exploring how the tendency to experience these emotions can lead people to engage in unethical behaviours. To achieve this aim we conducted a literature review and to first have a complete view of extant research on emotions and moral disengagement. Briefly, we found that studies exploring affective phenomena and moral disengagement have focused on general affective states, anger, and guilt, hence neglecting other relevant emotions like envy and pride. Among that research, studies notably failed to include other relevant control emotions to clearly establish the unique contribution of their target emotions. Lastly, even though most of these studies were contextualized in group settings (e.g., workplace, school), none of them explored group-level emotions. Therefore, in this thesis we addressed these gaps of both Big Five personality and emotion research in the context of moral disengagement. To achieve this, we developed three projects along two different streams. The first stream comprised one project addressed the exploration of Big Five domains and aspects as potential antecedents of moral disengagement and unethical decision-making across three correlational studies (Chapter 3). Additionally, we tested moral disengagement as a mediator candidate of the effects of Big Five factors on unethical decision-making and subsequently ran four meta-analyses on our data to better understand the effects found for each domain and aspects. In sum, these studies highlighted the main negative role of agreeableness and its aspect politeness, over compassion. Additionally, smaller effects were found for openness/intellect and its aspect openness (negative), extraversion (positive overall effect) and its aspects enthusiasm (negative) and assertiveness (positive), and neuroticism and its aspect volatility (positive). Lastly, mediation analyses showed that moral disengagement significantly accounted for the effects of these domains and aspects (except for domains neuroticism and extraversion) on unethical decision-making. The second stream of this thesis (chapters 5 to 10) comprised three projects and addressed the study of the associations between social comparison emotions, moral disengagement, and unethical decision-making. The first project of this stream (Chapter 5) explored, across two correlational studies, individual trait envy (based on upward social comparisons) by using a dual conceptualization of this emotion that differentiates between malicious, and benign envy. Findings from these studies confirmed the primarily significant, unique positive role of trait malicious envy (and the smaller positive effect for trait benign envy) on moral disengagement and unethical decision-making. Both trait malicious and benign envy’s positive effects on unethical decision-making were accounted for by moral disengagement. The second project of this stream (Chapter 7) centred on intergroup envy. Across two experimental studies we tested if individual and intergroup envy are differently related to moral disengagement and if intergroup malicious envy causes moral disengagement. Although Study 1 found initial evidence of a unique effect for intergroup malicious envy on moral disengagement for participants in a group-benefiting condition, Study 2 did not find causal effects for intergroup malicious envy on moral disengagement. Finally, in the third project of this stream (chapters 9 and 10) we moved from the upward social comparison emotion of envy to the downward social comparison emotion of pride. Concretely, in this project we first examined correlations between trait pride, moral disengagement, and unethical decision-making to then switch to state pride and experimentally tested its potential causal effect on moral disengagement. We focused on a dual conceptualization of pride rooted in comparison processes (i.e., social comparison-based, and self-comparison-based pride) but also included an influential model of pride based on controllable versus uncontrollable internal attributions (i.e., “authentic” pride, and “hubristic” pride). Findings of these studies showed the main positive association of trait social comparison-based pride to moral disengagement and unethical decision-making beyond other pride facets, trait emotions, and individual differences, as well as the role of moral disengagement in accounting for the effects of both social comparison-based and self-comparison-based pride on unethical decision-making. In sum, the studies compiled in this thesis contribute to current research on the antecedents of moral disengagement as they entail the first (separate) systematic account of both Big Five personality factors, and the social comparison emotions of envy and pride as potential antecedents of moral disengagement. Additionally, across this thesis, we presented moral disengagement as a consistent factor that may help to unveil the mechanisms by which both Big Five factors, envy, and pride may impact unethical decision-making. Finally, another central contribution of these projects is the comprehensive and strategic control of both individual differences and emotions to clearly reveal the unique effects of our target variables.

Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses

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