Overcoming unintended consequences of social impact accountability: How to avoid counterproductive responses of individuals and groups in organizations
{"title":"Overcoming unintended consequences of social impact accountability: How to avoid counterproductive responses of individuals and groups in organizations","authors":"Naomi Ellemers, Dick de Gilder","doi":"10.1111/sipr.12100","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This contribution aims to explain when and why policies that increase social accountability are likely to have unintended and counterproductive effects on the social performance of organizations. The Behavioral Regulation Model applies insights from social identity theory to recent research on moral psychology. This elucidates that deep concerns about social approval for one's morality and good intentions, raise “the paradox of morality”: The motivation to signal endorsement of social values and good intentions prompts people to justify and defend shortcomings in these domains, instead of addressing them. We demonstrate how this approach and research supporting it can help recognize and understand a range of defensive responses organizations and their representatives are likely to show. Subsequently, we specify how policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders can circumvent these counterproductive effects and help people in organizations to show more constructive responses toward social impact improvement.","PeriodicalId":47129,"journal":{"name":"Social Issues and Policy Review","volume":"119 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":7.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Social Issues and Policy Review","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12100","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This contribution aims to explain when and why policies that increase social accountability are likely to have unintended and counterproductive effects on the social performance of organizations. The Behavioral Regulation Model applies insights from social identity theory to recent research on moral psychology. This elucidates that deep concerns about social approval for one's morality and good intentions, raise “the paradox of morality”: The motivation to signal endorsement of social values and good intentions prompts people to justify and defend shortcomings in these domains, instead of addressing them. We demonstrate how this approach and research supporting it can help recognize and understand a range of defensive responses organizations and their representatives are likely to show. Subsequently, we specify how policymakers, regulators, and other stakeholders can circumvent these counterproductive effects and help people in organizations to show more constructive responses toward social impact improvement.
期刊介绍:
The mission of Social Issues and Policy Review (SIPR) is to provide state of the art and timely theoretical and empirical reviews of topics and programs of research that are directly relevant to understanding and addressing social issues and public policy.Papers will be accessible and relevant to a broad audience and will normally be based on a program of research. Works in SIPR will represent perspectives directly relevant to the psychological study of social issues and public policy. Contributions are expected to be review papers that present a strong scholarly foundation and consider how research and theory can inform social issues and policy or articulate the implication of social issues and public policy for theory and research.