From inconsistency to hypocrisy: When does “saying one thing but doing another” invite condemnation?
Section snippets
Negative interpersonal consequences
“Saying one thing but doing another” can have a variety of negative interpersonal consequences. The same transgression can spark harsher moral condemnation and punitive sentiment when it is inconsistent with values the transgressor has previously endorsed than when it is not (e.g., Effron, Jackman, Markus, Muramoto, & Muluk, 2018; Laurent, Clark, Walker, & Wiseman, 2013; Powell & Smith, 2012) – an inconsistency penalty in judgments of wrongdoing (Effron, Lucas, & O'Connor, 2015). Even minor
Theoretical model
We propose that when an audience witnesses an actor saying one thing but doing another, the audience asks itself two sets of questions, whether implicitly or explicitly. First, are the words and deeds misaligned (and if so, how much)? – and second, why are the words and deeds misaligned? The first question is about the extent to which inconsistency is perceived and the second is about how it is interpreted. Whereas perception refers to the detection of a stimulus (Colman, 2015), interpretation
Word-deed misalignment
Word-deed misalignment (“misalignment” for short) occurs when a person says and does different things (Simons, 2002). It is an objective description of behavior rather than a subjective perception. Misalignment itself is neither good nor bad, and the term conveys no information about a person’s motives or character. The relationship between words and deeds falls on a continuum of misalignment. For example, Ron Shaich’s decision to lay off cashiers and automate their job is at least somewhat
When do people perceive words and deeds as misaligned?
Having distinguished among key constructs, and done a deep dive into what counts as hypocrisy, we now turn to the first psychological process in our model: perceiving the misalignment (see Fig. 1). Before people grapple with whether to interpret word-deed misalignment as hypocrisy, they must determine whether, and how much, the words and deeds are misaligned (i.e., whether an actor has displayed low BI). Sometimes, identifying misalignment is easy because words and deeds are blatantly
When do people interpret misalignment as hypocrisy?
We now turn to the second psychological process in our model: interpreting the misalignment (see Fig. 1). Once an audience has perceived that an actor’s words and deeds are misaligned, what determines whether they interpret the misalignment as hypocritical? Research has documented several factors (see Table 2), which support our argument that people think of hypocrisy as claiming an undeserved moral benefit.
Summary of theoretical model
According to our model, an actor’s word-deed misalignment is more likely to provoke negative reactions from an audience when (a) the audience perceives the actor’s misalignment, and (b) the audience interprets it as hypocrisy (see Fig. 1). We have now reviewed a number of factors that influence these perceptions and interpretations, and that should thus affect how negatively audiences react to word-deed misalignment. An important contribution of the model is to clarify the distinctions and
Why is misalignment so prevalent?
Given that word-deed misalignment’s interpersonal consequences can be so negative, its apparent prevalence in organizations is striking. One explanation is that many people are actually motivated by hypocrisy: They want to reap the benefits of feeling or appearing moral without paying the requisite costs (Batson, 2002, Batson, 2016, Kurzban, 2010). Evidence for this explanation comes from laboratory experiments in which participants allocate resources selfishly despite simultaneously striving
Practical implications
“Walk your talk,” leaders are advised (e.g., Kouzes and Posner, 2011, Simons, 2008); in other words, minimize misalignment. However, given that some misalignment is inevitable in managing the complexities of organizations – and can even be strategic and beneficial – this is easier said than done. An alternative is to avoid words and let deeds speak for themselves. However, given the power of words to inspire followers (Bass, 1999, Burns, 1978), we do not recommend that leaders avoid espousing
Conclusion
When individuals, teams, or organizations fail to practice what they preach, they are often penalized with negative interpersonal reactions, such as distrust and moral condemnation, which can snowball into organizational problems like poor performance, employee turnover, and deviant behavior. Yet audiences who witness word-deed misalignment do not always react negatively, and sometimes even react positively. Given the virtual impossibility of keeping one’s words and deeds perfectly aligned –
References (164)
- et al.
Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership
The Leadership Quarterly
(2005) Ideas and actions: Justification and hypocrisy as alternatives to control
Accounting, Organization and Society
(1993)- et al.
When values backfire: Leadership, attribution: and disenchantment in a values-driven organization
The Leadership Quarterly
(2006) - et al.
Feeling the anguish of others: A theory of vicarious dissonance
The logic of social exchange: Has natural selection shaped how humans reason? Studies with the Wason selection task
Cognition
(1989)- et al.
When virtue leads to villainy: Advances in research on moral self-licensing
Current Opinion in Psychology
(2015) - et al.
Hypocrisy and culture: Failing to practice what you preach receives harsher interpersonal reactions in independent (vs. interdependent) cultures
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
(2018) - et al.
Hypocrisy by association: When organizational membership increases condemnation for wrongdoing
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
(2015) - et al.
Do as I say, not as I’ve done: Suffering for a misdeed reduces the hypocrisy of advising others against it
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
(2015) - et al.
Judging near and distant virtue and vice
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
(2008)
Vicarious hypocrisy: Bolstering attitudes and taking action after exposure to a hypocritical ingroup member
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Why do we hate hypocrites? Evidence for a theory of false signaling
Psychological Science
“Doing well by doing good”? Ambivalent moral framing in organizations
Research in Organizational Behavior
Abstraction increases hypocrisy
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Moral hypocrisy: Impression management or self-deception?
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
On why hypocrisy thrives: Reasonable doubt created by moral posturing can deter punishment
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
A double standard when group members behave badly: Transgression credit to ingroup leaders
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Culpable control and the psychology of blame
Psychological Bulletin
Hypocrisy: What counts?
Philosophical Psychology
Perceived intent motivates people to magnify observed harms
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Overcoming denial and increasing the intention to use condoms through the induction of hypocrisy
American Journal of Public Health
Emotional labor in service roles: The influence of identity
Academy of Management Review
Where the motivation resides and self-deception hides: How motivated cognition accomplishes self-deception
Social and Personality Psychology Compass
See what you want to see: Motivational influences on visual perception
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
“Saying one thing and doing another”: Examining the impact of event order on hypocrisy judgments of others
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Order of actions mitigates hypocrisy judgments for ingroup more than outgroup members
Group Processes and Intergroup Relations
Two decades of research and development in transformational leadership
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
Justice motivation and moral motivation
Moral motivation: A closer look
In a very different voice: Unmasking moral hypocrisy
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Moral hypocrisy: Appearing moral to oneself without being so
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Integrity in organizations: Beyond honesty and conscientiousness
Academy of Management Review
Political hypocrisy: The effect of political scandals on candidate evaluations
Acta Politica
A meta-analytic review of moral licensing
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Attention, perception, and social cognition
Isomorphism, diffusion and decoupling: Concept evolution and theoretical challenges
The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism
From smoke and mirrors to walking the talk: Decoupling in the contemporary world
Academy of Management Annals
The organization of hypocrisy: Talk, decisions and actions in organizations
Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Leadership
Strategic silence: Withholding certification status as a hypocrisy avoidance tactic
Administrative Science Quarterly
From synchronizing to harmonizing: the process of authenticating multiple work identities
Administrative Science Quarterly
Cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Oxford dictionary of psychology
Multiple meanings of communicative acts in the reduction of vicarious cognitive dissonance
Walking the talk: A multistakeholder exploration of organizational authenticity, employee productivity, and post-merger performance
Academy of Management Perspectives
Evolutionary psychology: New perspectives on cognition and motivation
Annual Review of Psychology
Hypocrisy and moral seriousness
American Philosophical Quarterly
Beyond bullsh*t: Straight-talk at work
Cited by (66)
Beyond allies and recipients: Exploring observers’ allyship emulation in response to leader allyship
2024, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesAre rules meant to be broken? When and why consistent rule-following undermines versus enhances trust
2024, Journal of Experimental Social PsychologyThe pitfalls of corporate social irresponsibility: Hypocrisy of family firms in South Korea
2024, Journal of Cleaner ProductionDemeaning extrinsic motivation leads to increased perceptions of hypocrisy
2024, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesGoing deep into a leader's integrity: A systematic review and the way forward
2023, European Management JournalCitation Excerpt :For example, the theory explains that showing integrity in communities where the social norms support (dis)integrity, stinging to the super-norm of integrity, will bring positive consequences (Gosling & Huang, 2009; Scheetz & Fogarty, 2019). In the opposite case, in societies where the social norms support integrity, (dis)integrity will bring negative consequences (Effron, Markus, Jackman, Muramoto, & Muluk, 2018; Greenbaum et al., 2015). Mean people react more severely to what is different from their existing norms either in a positive or negative manner (Moore et al., 2019).