Punishing the Perpetrator of Incivility: The Differential Roles of Moral Identity and Moral Thinking Orientation

Abstract

To shed light on the paradoxical phenomenon that third parties of interpersonal mistreatment are motivated to restore justice but often engage in unethical actions, this research differentiates between destructive and constructive punitive reactions while testing the different moderating roles of moral identity and moral thinking orientation. From two studies using different methods and samples from different cultures, we obtained consistent findings that witnessed peer-to-peer incivility triggered moral outrage, which in turn led to both types of punitive reactions. Moral identity strengthened the relationship between witnessed incivility and moral outrage, while rule-based moral thinking orientation weakened the relationship between moral outrage and destructive punitive reaction. Moral identity strengthened the relationship between moral outrage and constructive punitive reaction. The indirect effect of witnessed mistreatment on destructive punitive reaction through moral outrage was strongest among participants with higher moral identity but lower rule-based moral thinking orientation. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.