Consumers' Complaints: Causal attribution and moral emotions in service failures

Purpose: This research investigated consumers’ reactions to service failures, based on Weiner’s attribution theory, by simulating two situations: a teacher that is late to class and a delay in a course registration service.Method: Students at an educational service (n = 388) responded to four versions of scenarios, combining external and internal causes with teacher delay and enrollment problems.Findings: Factor analyzes inductively reflected the theoretical organization of the model: Negative Behavior, Positive Reactions, Internal Attributions, and Negative Emotions. Internal causes led to internal attributions, negative emotions and negative behaviors. Originality: The central role of moral emotions on the attitude towards complaining behavior is discussed, as well as the importance of implementing simple and low-cost managerial measures to improve the quality of care service.

Systematic Review of Socio-Emotional Values Within Organizations

The theory of separation assumes, with provocation, that an organization cannot reconcile profits and social function. Organizations can reconcile these two, apparently contrasting, missions, by considering emotions, especially moral emotions, to create a genuine motivation for focusing on goals beyond simple economic earnings and protecting organizations or groups of people from dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors, as well as considering the important role of the stakeholder accountability. Using the PRISMA method, we created a review of records using keywords relating to a socio-emotional value within organizations, with a particular focus on the last 20 years. We used the SCOPUS database and, after removing irrelevant records, we used the VOSviewer tool to create a cluster map of different areas in this topic. Some records cite the socio-emotional value that is related to organizational and employee suffering, while other articles consider it a positive factor that improves performance and prevents problems in organizations.

The Archangel Delusion. Descriptive Ethics and Its Role in the Education of Ethicists

The role of ethicists is to provide a genuine ethical theory to help non-ethicists interpret and solve moral dilemmas, to define what is right or wrong, and, finally, to clarify moral values. Therefore, ethicists are taught to address morality with rational procedures, to set aside their moral intuitions and emotions. Sometimes, professional ethicists are prone to falling into the archangel delusion – the belief that they are beyond the influence of their own emotions. This can lead to ousting moral intuitions from the space of ethical reflection, thus making ethicists unaware of them. They may treat intuitive beliefs about morality as an expression of primal moral feelings. The main question pursued in this article, is how those feelings may influence moral theories, which should be developed by professional ethicists. Ethicists may provide an ethical theory which is merely a rationalisation and justification for their own suppressed moral emotions, rather than the effect of genuine, rational moral reasoning. To help ethicists cope with this delusion, a model of cooperation between descriptive and normative ethics is proposed. Ethicists should therefore use the research tools of descriptive ethics to determine their own intuitions, and the moral emotions in which these intuitions are grounded. --------------- Received: 09/06/2021. Reviewed: 23/07/2021. Accepted: 13/08/2021.

Phrase Depicting Immoral Behavior Dilates Its Subjective Time Judgment

Intuitive moral emotions play a major role in forming our opinions and moral decisions. However, it is not yet known how we perceive the subjective time of moral-related information. In this study, we compared subjective durations of phrases depicting immoral, disgust, or neutral behaviors in a duration bisection task and found that phrases depicting immoral behavior were perceived as lasting longer than the neutral and disgusting phrases. By contrast, the subjective duration of the disgusting phrase, unlike the immoral phrase, was comparable to the neutral phrase. Moreover, the lengthening effect of the immoral phrase relative to the neutral phrase was significantly correlated to the anonymously prosocial tendency of the observer. Our findings suggest that immoral phrases induce embodied moral reaction, which alters emotional state and subsequently lengthens subjective time.

Two facets of pride and knowledge hiding: an empirical analysis

Purpose This study aims to investigate whether or not the two facets of pride, hubristic and authentic, are associated with knowledge hiding. Design/methodology/approach This study collects survey data (N = 343) from one of the leading information technology (IT) companies in Myanmar at two stages with a two-month interval. This study uses multiple regression analyses to test this study’s hypotheses. Findings Results reveal that hubristic pride is positively related to knowledge hiding, whereas the relationship between authentic pride and knowledge hiding is negative. These relationships are contingent upon the level of employees’ self-efficacy. Research limitations/implications This study suggests that managers should include measures for moral emotions in their recruitment and selection criteria. Furthermore, the authors suggest that managers should design strategies to induce moral emotions at the workplace and enhance personal resources (e.g. self-efficacy), which have an instrumental effect in maximizing the prosocial facet of pride (i.e. authentic pride) as well as minimizing adverse experiences of the antisocial facet of pride (i.e. hubristic pride), thereby reducing knowledge hiding. Originality/value The findings shed light on the significance of the inclusion of emotional variables in understanding employees’ knowledge hiding. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical study to examine the combined effect of emotive and cognitive variables in predicting knowledge hiding by demonstrating that hubristic pride only mitigates knowledge hiding behavior among high self-efficacious employees.

The Borderline Bias in Explicit Emotion Interpretation

Atypical emotion interpretation has been widely reported in individuals with borderline personality disorder (iBPD); however, empirical studies reported mixed results so far. We suggest that discrepancies in observations of emotion interpretation by iBPD can be explained by biases related to their fear of rejection and abandonment, i.e., the three moral emotions of anger, disgust, and contempt. In this study, we hypothesized that iBPD would show a higher tendency to correctly interpret these three displays of social rejection and attribute more negative valence. A total of 28 inpatient iBPDs and 28 healthy controls were asked to judge static and dynamic facial expressions in terms of emotions, valence, and self-reported arousal evoked by the observed faces. Our results partially confirmed our expectations. The iBPD correctly interpreted the three unambiguous moral emotions. Contempt, a complex emotion with a difficulty in recognizing facial expressions, was recognized better by iBPD than by healthy controls. All negative emotions were judged more negatively by iBPD than by controls, but no difference was observed in the neutral or positive emotion. Alexithymia and anxiety trait and state levels were controlled in all analyses.

THE CONSTRUCT OF MORAL TRAUMA AND ITS CONCEPTUAL CONTENT

Purpose is to explore the concept of moral trauma, as well as to carry out a comparative analysis with relevant concepts of collective trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and traumatic stress.Methods. The study applies theoretical analysis of the literature and systematization of recent studies aligned with the concept of moral trauma, including of methods of analysis, synthesis, and generalization.Results. A review of the literature identifies key approaches to the interpretation of moral trauma concept in the context of military trauma research and research in the terms of morality and moral experiences.Conclusions. The main concept definitions, key characteristics, common and distinct conceptual features of the moral trauma, traumatic stress, PTSD and collective trauma concepts have been analyzed. The study reveals that moral trauma is often aligned with individual and collective context, while PTSD is always connected with individual trauma. Collective trauma often relates to historic trauma, trauma of identity and cultural trauma. The key difference of moral trauma in comparison with PTSD, collective trauma md and continuous traumatic stress is aligned with negative moral emotions, particularly feelings of guilt, shame, disgust, fear and anxiety. The traumatic stress concept covers physiological and psychological reactions of the body arising from security breaches and threats feelings, while moral trauma refers to damage of moral conscience and human values caused by subjective perception and experience in the individual backgrounds of the situation as traumatic.The results of theoretical analysis also indicate that moral trauma should be studied in the wider context of morality, namely moral standards, moral judgements, moral behaviour and moral emotions. Prospects for further research are the construct of moral trauma study in the context of the Psychology of Genocide as a collective and historical trauma, developing methodological basis for empirical research of moral trauma as a consequence of genocide.Key words: morality, moral trauma, PTSD, traumatic stress, collective trauma. Мета – дослідити поняття моральної травми, а також провести порівняльний аналіз із відповідними поняттями колективної травми, посттравматичного стресового розладу (ПТСР) та травматичного стресу.Методи. У дослідженні застосовується теоретичний аналіз літератури та систематизація досліджень останніх років, узгоджених із концепцією моральної травми, включно з методами аналізу, синтезу та узагальнення.Результати. Огляд літератури визначає ключові підходи до трактування концепції моральної травми в контексті досліджень військової травми з точки зору моралі та морального досвіду.Висновки. Проаналізовано визначення основних понять, ключові характеристики, загальні та чіткі концептуальні ознаки моральної травми, травматичного стресу, посттравматичного стресового розладу та концепції колективної травми. Дослідження показує, що моральна травма часто узгоджується з індивідуальним та колективним контекстом, тоді як посттравматичний стресовий розлад завжди пов’язаний з індивідуальною травмою. Колективна травма часто пов’язана з історичною травмою, травмою ідентичності та культурною травмою. Ключова відмінність моральної травми порівняно з посттравматичним стресовим розладом, колективною травмою та постійним травматичним стресом узгоджується з негативними моральними емоціями, зокрема почуттям провини, сорому, огиди, страху та тривоги.Поняття травматичного стресу охоплює фізіологічні та психологічні реакції організму, що виникають через відчуття порушення безпеки та загрози, тоді як моральна травма стосується ушкоджень моральної совісті та цінностей людини, спричинених суб’єктивним сприйняттям та переживанням в індивідуальному досвіді ситуації як травматичної.Результати теоретичного аналізу також указують на те, що моральну травму слід вивчати у ширшому контексті моралі, а саме через моральні стандарти, моральні судження, моральну поведінку та моральні емоції. Перспективами подальших досліджень є вивчення конструкту моральної травми в контексті психології геноциду як колективної та історичної травми, що становить методологічну основу емпіричного дослідження моральної травми як наслідку геноциду.Ключові слова: мораль, моральна травма, ПТСР, травматичний стрес, колективна травма.

Moral Emotion and Intuition in Organizations

While traditional approaches have described ethical decision-making in organizations mainly as being the result of rational deliberative thought, a steadily growing body of research indicates that moral decision-making is strongly influenced by moral intuitions and emotions. The moral intuition approach typically has two aspects: the process through which moral intuitions emerge and their content. With regard to the process, moral intuitions represent fast, automatic, evaluative reactions that are emotionally charged. An important tenet of moral intuition research refers to the primacy of intuition—the notion that moral intuitions generally drive moral decision-making. Accordingly, moral intuitions are described as starting points for rational reflection processes that follow later. On this basis, it has also been argued that the interplay of moral intuition and deliberation is malleable. Specifically, the well-formed moral intuitions of experts are thought to differ from the naive moral intuitions of novices. With increasing experience and reflection about the moral issues in one’s experiences, deliberation increasingly enables individuals to shift between intuitions and reasoning and to monitor, test, weigh, and reject both intuitions and reasons. The content of moral intuition refers to the foundations of morality, which are the underlying moral domain, specifying what individuals view as morally right or wrong. The most commonly referenced account in this field, Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), argues that moral intuitions are a function of evolutionarily developed, innate predispositions to master multiple social problems that interact with social and cultural influences. These predispositions, or moral foundations, include care, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. While empirical work on the role of moral intuition in organizations is still at an early stage, several areas have been identified that may particularly benefit from integrating moral intuition process and content. For instance, the moral intuition perspective can aid the understanding and prevention of processes through which unethical behaviors and practices, such as corruption, may be justified and normalized in organizations. Furthermore, the moral intuition perspective is increasingly used to study the moral leadership process, most notably the link between leader moral foundations and moral leader behaviors, as well as the role of (mis)fit between leader and follower moral foundations. Moral emotions are an inherent element of the moral intuition process and refer to the welfare of others and the promotion of a functioning society. It is thought that individuals experience moral emotions when they or others have violated moral standards. These emotions build the motivational force for moral action and are often placed in five clusters: other‐praising (e.g., gratitude), other‐suffering (e.g., sympathy), other‐condemning (e.g., contempt), self‐condemning (e.g., guilt), and self-approving (e.g., moral pride) moral emotions.

Harm Transgressions Only Induce Anger, Purity Transgressions Only Induce disgust? Experiment Based on Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure

The perspective of cognition in moral judgment has drawn much attention in early research, but more and more evidences from moral judgment researches have shown that moral emotion plays an important role in it. Under the simple context of moral judgment, Rottman and Young (2019) found dosage effect in moral domain, in detail, it has been proved that individuals are sensitive to the change of frequency of harm transgressions, but insensitive to purity transgressions. The mechanism might be the specific type of moral emotion of specific immoral behavior differ with each other that further caused the difference of sensitivity in dosage. But nowadays there are debate that if specific immoral behavior produces specific moral emotion, or specific immoral behavior produces several moral emotions. Our study aimed to explore the mechanism behind dosage effect and solve the questions above. We used implicit relational assessment procedure to find the automatic correspondences of harm violations – angry and purity violations – disgust. The results showed that no matter what type of stimulus are (In study 1, violations sentences matched emotional pictures; In study 2, violation sentences matched emotional words), participants’ reaction to the consistent relationships were faster than inconsistent relationships, that is, the correspondences we proposed were established. In the study 3, we wanted to find (1) if these correspondences were affected by the type of materials in experiment? (2) The total effect size of correspondences can reach to what extent? Single-paper meta-analysis was conducted and results showed medium to large effect size and the correspondences were not affected by materials, which supported moral foundation theory and provided explanations for dosage effect. Discussion further explained results from relational framework theory and the theory of evolution of emotion. This research provides theoretical framework in moral emotions.