Third-Party Perceptions of Mistreatment: A Meta-Analysis and Integrative Model of Reactions to Perpetrators and Victims

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Hill, Edwyna T.; Colquitt, Jason A.; Burgess, Rachel; Priesemuth, Manuela; McClain, Jefferson T.
• 署名单位: University of South Carolina System; University of South Carolina Columbia; University of Notre Dame; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Villanova University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0021-9010
• DOI: 10.1037/apl0001211
• 发表日期: 2025
• 页码: 107-130
• 关键词: third parties; mistreatment; emotions; Antisocial behavior; prosocial behavior

摘要

Third parties have increasingly become the focus of research on mistreatment in organizations. Much of that work is grounded in deonance theory, which argues that third parties should react to the perpetrators of mistreatment with anger. Deonance theory is less explicit as to how third parties should react to the victims of mistreatment, though empirical work has pointed to empathy as one potential reaction. Deonance theory is less capable of explaining recent findings suggesting that third parties may react to mistreatment events with schadenfreude. The purpose of our study was to conduct a meta-analytic test of an integrative model specifying the relationships between third-party perceptions of mistreatment and reactions to perpetrators and victims. That model predicted that third-party perceptions of mistreatment would be associated with emotional reactions (anger toward the perpetrator, empathy toward the victim, schadenfreude from the event), cognitive reactions (evaluations of the perpetrator and victim), and behavioral reactions (antisocial and prosocial behaviors toward the perpetrator and victim). Our model testing provides the first quantitative synthesis of the third-party mistreatment literature while surfacing counterintuitive findings that would not be anticipated from deonance theory's arguments. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our work while providing guidance for future research.