Once bitten, twice shy: The negative spillover effect of seeing betrayal of trust.

From financial improprieties to fraudulent claims, scandals and trust transgressions can incite feelings of betrayal. Can these negative reactions spillover and taint other entities that were not involved in the original transgression? We conducted six studies to investigate this question directly. Results consistently demonstrated that people who had perceived a recent betrayal by a transgressing trustee were significantly less likely to trust a new entity that shared nominal group membership with the previous trust transgressor. This betrayal spillover effect occurs both in economic game environments and can be applied to real-world charitable contexts in which people made actual donation decisions or assessed the likelihood that a charity would be embroiled in a scandal in the future. Importantly, the betrayal spillover effect only spilled over to those that shared a nominal group identity with the original trust transgressor, and this behavior was driven by a sense of distrust stemming from people's expectations having been violated. By systematically investigating whether and to what extent betrayals can contaminate subsequent trust development, this research provides a deeper and broadened understanding on how one may be vicariously affected by other entities' trust indiscretions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Wish-making during the COVID-19 pandemic enhances positive appraisals and job satisfaction.

Guided by cognitive appraisal theory, we argue that wish-making is a conceptually distinct type of coping strategy and that wish-making during the COVID-19 pandemic has functional cognitive-affective consequences. Specifically, it facilitates positive appraisals of the pandemic, which then facilitate job satisfaction. Enhanced job satisfaction in turn reduces counterproductive work behavior during the pandemic. These arguments were tested via two empirical studies involving 546 Hong Kong employees surveyed on two consecutive working days during the pandemic. The individuals who made wishes during the pandemic reported more positive appraisals of the pandemic, which in turn promoted their job satisfaction and lowered their counterproductive work behavior. Crucially, wish-making had significant effects on positive appraisals above and beyond other coping strategies. Thus, we contribute to the employee coping literature by highlighting one relatively easy way for employees to combat the psychological effects of the pandemic (and other challenges in life) and regulate their affective well-being and behaviors at work. Namely, making wishes that envision a better future can enhance employees' job satisfaction, which in turn lowers counterproductive work behavior.

Changes in perceptions of ethical leadership: Effects on associative and dissociative outcomes.

From employees' point of view, changes in ethical leadership perceptions can signal important changes in the nature of the employment relationship. Guided by social exchange theory, this study proposes that changes in ethical leadership perceptions shape how employees appraise their exchange relationship with the organization and affect their pride in or contempt for the organization. Changes in these associative/dissociative emotions, in turn, precipitate changes in behaviors that serve or hurt the organization, notably voice and turnover. Experimental data collected from 900 subjects (Study 1) and field data collected from 470 employees across 4 waves over 14 months (Study 2) converged to show that changes in ethical leadership perceptions were related to same-direction changes in employees' pride in the organization and to opposite-direction changes in their contempt for the organization above and beyond the effect of the present ethical leadership level. Changes in pride were in turn related to same-direction changes in functional voice, whereas changes in contempt were related to same-direction changes in dysfunctional voice. The field study also provided evidence that when pride increased (decreased), employees were less (more) likely to leave the organization 6 months after. These results suggest that changes in ethical leadership perceptions are meaningful on their own, that they may alter employees' organization-targeted behaviors, and that changes in associative/dissociative emotions are the mediating mechanism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

From slacktivism to activism: Improving the commitment power of e-pledges for prosocial causes.

Prosocial organizations increasingly rely on e-pledges to promote their causes and secure commitment. Yet their effectiveness is controversial. Epitomized by UNICEF's "Likes Don't Save Lives" campaign, the threat of slacktivism has led some organizations to forsake social media as a potential platform for garnering commitment. We proposed and investigated a novel e-pledging method that may enable organizations to capitalize on the benefits of e-pledging without compromising on its mass outreach potential. In two pilot studies, we first explored whether and why conventional e-pledges may not be as effective as intended. Building on those insights, we conducted one field and two lab experiments to test our proposed e-pledge intervention. Importantly, the field study demonstrated the effectiveness of the intervention for commitment behavior across a 3-month period. The laboratory experiments provided a deeper and more refined mechanism understanding of the effect and ruled out effort, novelty, and social interaction mindset as alternative explanations for why the intervention may be effective. As technological innovations continue to redefine how people interact with the world, this research sheds light on a promising method for transforming a simple virtual acknowledgment into deeper commitment-and, ideally, to action.