Huang Lei, Carnevale Joel B, Mackey Jeremy, Paterson Ted A, Li Xiaolu, Yang Dongtao
Department of Management and Entrepreneurship, Raymond J. Harbert College of Business, Auburn University.
Department of Management, Martin J. Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University.
J Appl Psychol. 2025 Jan;110(1):49-66. doi: 10.1037/apl0001217. Epub 2024 Jul 18.
Previous research on the consequences of ethical voice has largely focused on the performance or social relational consequences of ethical voice on multiple organizational stakeholders. The present research provides an important extension to the ethical voice literature by investigating the distinct intrapersonal and interpersonal moral self-regulatory processes that shape ethical voicers' own psychological experiences and their subsequent purposeful efforts to maintain a positive sense of moral self. On one hand, we argue that ethical voice heightens voicers' sense of responsibility over ethical matters at work (i.e., moral ownership), which motivates them to refrain from violating moral norms (i.e., disengaging from unethical behaviors). On the contrary, we argue that ethical voice generates psychological pressure for voicers as they become anxious about preserving their moral social image (i.e., moral reputation maintenance concerns), which motivates them to signal their moral character to others through symbolic acts (i.e., engaging in moral symbolization behaviors). Further, we expect gender differences in the moral consequences of ethical voice. Across two studies that varied in temporal focus (a multisource, time-lagged field study and a within-person weekly experience sampling study), we found support for most of our predictions. The results suggest that while potentially psychologically uplifting (for both men and women), ethical voice also generates psychological pressure for the voicer to preserve their favorable moral social image and thus motivates them (more so in the case of women voicers at the between-person level) to explicitly symbolize their moral character in the workplace. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
以往关于道德发声后果的研究主要集中在道德发声对多个组织利益相关者的绩效或社会关系后果上。本研究通过调查塑造道德发声者自身心理体验以及他们随后为维持积极的道德自我意识而进行的有目的努力的独特的个人内部和人际道德自我调节过程，为道德发声文献提供了重要扩展。一方面，我们认为道德发声会增强发声者对工作中道德事务的责任感（即道德所有权），这促使他们避免违反道德规范（即避免不道德行为）。相反，我们认为道德发声会给发声者带来心理压力，因为他们会担心维护自己的道德社会形象（即道德声誉维护问题），这促使他们通过象征性行动向他人表明自己的道德品质（即参与道德象征行为）。此外，我们预计道德发声的道德后果存在性别差异。在两项时间焦点不同的研究中（一项多源、时间滞后的现场研究和一项个人每周体验抽样研究），我们发现大部分预测得到了支持。结果表明，虽然道德发声可能在心理上令人振奋（对男性和女性都是如此），但它也会给发声者带来心理压力，促使他们维护自己良好的道德社会形象，从而促使他们（在个体层面上，女性发声者的情况更明显）在工作场所明确地象征自己的道德品质。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
