A Motivated Account of How Attributions of Passion Serve to Legitimize the Poor Treatment of Workers

Abstract

The pursuit of passion in one’s work is touted in contemporary discourse. We suggest that this cultural emphasis may serve to facilitate the legitimization of poor worker treatment, and that this process may be motivated by system- and status-legitimizing beliefs. Study 1 found that people do in fact deem poor worker treatment (e.g., asking workers to do uncomfortable tasks that are irrelevant to their job description, asking workers to work extra hours without pay) as more legitimate when workers are presumed to be “passionate” about their work. This effect was mediated by a set of rationale – beliefs that, for passionate workers, work itself is its own reward and assumptions that passionate workers would have volunteered for this work if given the chance. We also found support for the motivational account: (1) participants who held strong beliefs in a just world showed a tendency to rely on the set of rationale to legitimize exploiting passionate workers (Study 1) and (2) participants with a high social dominance orientation were more likely to legitimize exploiting low-status (vs. high-status) workers, and in turn endorse the set of rationale to justify this action (Study 2). Taken together, although passion appears a positive attribute to assume in others, it can also license poor treatments of workers, especially for people who are motivated to justify unfair outcomes and group inequality.