An Exploration of the Dishonest Side of Self-Monitoring Links to Moral disengagement

8/17/2019 An Exploration of the Dishonest Side of Self-Monitoring Links to Moral disengagement

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An Exploration of the Dishonest Side of Self-Monitoring: Links to MoralDisengagement and Unethical Business Decision Making

BABATUNDE OGUNFOWORA1*, JOSHUA S. BOURDAGE

2and BRENDA NGUYEN

3

1Goodman School of Business, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada2 Department of Psychology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada3 Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Abstract: The majority of research on self-monitoring has focused on the positive aspects of this personality trait. The

goal of the present research was to shed some light on the potential negative side of self-monitoring and resulting

consequences in two independent studies. Study 1 demonstrated that, in addition to being higher on Extraversion, high

self-monitors are also more likely to be low on Honesty-Humility, which is characterized by a tendency to be dishonest

and driven by self-gain. Study 2 was designed to investigate the consequences of this dishonest side of self-monitoring

using two previously unexamined outcomes: moral disengagement and unethical business decision making. Results

showed that high self-monitors are more likely to engage in unethical business decision making and that this relationship

is mediated by the propensity to engage in moral disengagement. In addition, these negative effects of self-monitoring

were found to be due to its low Honesty-Humility aspect, rather than its high Extraversion side. Further investigation

showed similar effects for the Other-Directedness and Acting (but not Extraversion) self-monitoring subscales. These

ndings provide valuable insight into previously unexamined negative consequences of self-monitoring and suggest im-

portant directions for future research on self-monitoring. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Key words: self-monitoring; Honesty-Humility; Extraversion; moral disengagement; ethical business decision

making; HEXACO model; personality

Since its initial proposition (Snyder, 1974), the self-monitoring

construct has been a topic of enthusiastic investigation in many

research domains. Self-monitoring refers to the extent to which

an individual monitors the public appearance of the self in

social settings and interpersonal relationships (Snyder, 1987).

High self-monitors1 are attuned to their social environment

and adjust their behaviours in order to control images that they

present to others. Low self-monitors, on the other hand, are

more consistent in their behaviours across contexts and are also

consistent with their attitudes, emotions and dispositions

(Snyder & Gangestad, 1986).

A review of the literature shows strong evidence in support

of the positive effects of high self-monitoring, including higher

emotional intelligence (Tett, Fox, & Wang, 2005), greater non-verbal decoding skills (ability to recognize emotional displays

in others) and behavioural sensitivity to the expectations of

others (see Gangestad & Snyder, 2000, for a review). Within

the workplace context, high self-monitoring has been positively

linked to promotions over a 5-year period (Kilduff & Day,

1994), positive leadership behaviours, perceptions of leader

effectiveness (Day, Schleicher, Unckless, & Hiller, 2002),

leadership emergence (Cronshaw & Ellis, 1991; Ellis, 1988),

greater job involvement (Day et al., 2002) and higher evaluations

on interpersonal aspects of job performance (Barrick, Parks, &

Mount, 2005; Blakely, Andrews, & Fuller, 2003).

Despite these positive effects, however, there appears to be

a somewhat more negative side to self-monitoring. In their

seminal review, Gangestad and Snyder (2000) noted that

although constructs such as self-monitoring may be good

natured and functional in terms of social interaction, there “. . .

may also be an essential component in illicit social activities

as well, such as lying, concealing one’s true intentions, or

presenting an inauthentic self ” (p. 530). Indeed, researchers

have found that high self-monitors tend to condone lies when

there is opportunity for self-gain and engage in deception inromantic relationships (Gangestad & Snyder, 2000; McLeod

& Genereux, 2008). Thus, there is a growing body of

evidence indicating that there may be a more negative side

to self-monitoring. The goal of the present research was to

investigate the personality basis of this negative side and

potential consequences in two independent studies. In the

succeeding discussions, we provide an overview of the

extant theoretical and empirical work on self-monitoring

and how the present research ts within this literature.

Next, we present two empirical studies designed to extend the

literature. In Study 1, we examined the personality correlates

of self-monitoring in order to show the dual aspects of thisconstruct —that is, its ‘positive’ (high Extraversion) and

‘negative’ (low Honesty-Humility) sides. In Study 2, we

*Correspondence to: Babatunde Ogunfowora, Goodman School of Busi-ness, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada.E-mail: [email protected] 1We use the term ‘high self-monitor ’ as an abbreviation to describe individ-uals who score highly on self-monitoring scales. It is not our intent to usethis term as a diagnostic label.

European Journal of Personality, Eur. J. Pers. 27: 532–544 (2013)

Published online 11 July 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/per.1931

Received 2 August 2012

Revised 25 March 2013, Accepted 1 April 2013Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


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examined the consequences of the proposed negative side of

self-monitoring with respect to the propensity to engage in

moral disengagement and to make unethical business

decisions.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Although Snyder (1974, 1987) initially conceptualized self-

monitoring as uni-dimensional, the past few decades have

witnessed extensive debate about its dimensionality. The major-

ity of this debate stems from evaluations of the psychometric

properties of Snyder ’s Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974;

Snyder & Gangestad, 1986). According to this body of

research, the Self-Monitoring Scale can be broken down into

three subscales, namely Acting, Extraversion and Other-

Directedness (Lennox & Wolfe, 1984; Snyder & Gangestad,

1986). Acting describes the extent to which the high self-

monitor is capable of playing or assuming the role of a different

persona or character (e.g. ‘I would probably make a good actor ’or ‘I nd it hard to imitate the behaviour of other people’—

Reversed). Other-Directedness is concerned with the extent to

which the individual portrays multiple façades to different

persons and in different contexts (e.g. ‘In different situations

and with different people, I often act like very different persons’

and ‘I’m not always the person I appear to be’). Last, the

Extraversion subscale is composed of sociable and outgoing

behaviours (e.g. ‘At a party, I let others keep the jokes and

stories going’—Reversed). On the basis of a comprehensive

quantitative review of this literature, Gangestad and Snyder

(2000) reported evidence in support of a two-factor structure,

which they termed Public Performing and Other-Directedness(see also Briggs & Cheek, 1988; Gangestad & Snyder, 1985).

All three subscales were found to load on the Public Performing

factor, which captures the majority of the variance of the scale.

This factor, named the Self-Monitoring axis, was found to be

very strongly closely associated with the Acting subscale

(Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Last, the Other-Directedness

and Extraversion subscales loaded on the second dimension

(Gangestad & Snyder, 2000).

The prominence of Extraversion in Snyder ’s (1974)

self-monitoring measure led to extensive investigations

into the extent to which self-monitoring and its effects

could be primarily accounted for by trait Extraversion

and other related ‘social’ traits (e.g. Briggs & Cheek,1988; John, Cheek, & Klohnen, 1996). Across a number

of studies, Extraversion has emerged as an important corre-

late of self-monitoring, typically possessing positive rela-

tionships in the .30s and .40s (Barrick et al., 2005; Bono

& Vey, 2007; Briggs & Cheek, 1988). Gangestad and

Snyder (2000) acknowledged that Extraversion enjoys a

dominant presence in the Self-Monitoring Scale and is a

nontrivial covariate of the self-monitoring axis. Moreover,

the link between self-monitoring and trait Extraversion

may also be explained by the Acting subscale, which to

some extent requires social skills in order to be successful

(i.e. to ‘be an actor ’

or to imitate the social behavioursof others). Research evidence, however, indicates that

self-monitoring and its effects cannot be solely explained

by Extraversion or any other personality trait within the

dominant Big Five factor structure (Barrick et al., 2005;

Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Thus, there appears to be a

distinct aspect to self-monitoring that, according to Gangestad

and Snyder, is informed by phenomena that pertain to “varia-

tion in predispositions to engage in certain forms of impression

management . . .categories that can best be characterized as

concerning the active construction of public selves designed

to achieve social ends” (Gangestad & Snyder, 2000, p. 546).

A review of the emerging literature on broad personality

dimensions suggests that this other aspect of Self-Monitoring

may be better captured under an alternative personality frame-

work known as the HEXACO Personality Model (Ashton &

Lee, 2007; Lee & Ashton, 2005). The HEXACO model pro-

poses that there are six, not ve, broad dimensions of personal-

ity, namely: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion,

Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experi-

ence (Ashton & Lee, 2007). Although there are a few notable

differences between the HEXACO model and the prominent

Big Five Model, the inclusion of Honesty-Humility, the sixthpersonality dimension, represents a key departure and signi-

cant advantage of this model (Ashton & Lee, 2007; Lee,

Ogunfowora, & Ashton, 2005). Honesty-Humility is described

by adjectives such as honest, fair, sincere or loyal versus

greedy, conceited, pretentious and sly (Ashton & Lee, 2007).

The negative pole of Honesty-Humility highlights the ten-

dency to be dishonest and driven by self-gain, the acquisition

of material goods and willingness to condone fraudulent acts,

including presenting a façade to gain something from others

(Ashton & Lee, 2007). These descriptors, particularly the

latter, share theoretical similarities with high self-monitoring.

As noted earlier, Gangestad and Snyder (2000) argued that the Self-Monitoring axis reects a predisposition to engage in

impression management and image management behaviours.

Similarly, individuals who are low on Honesty-Humility have

been shown to engage in impression management and

impression-management-motivated behaviours (Bourdage,

Lee, & Ogunfowora, 2009; Bourdage, Lee, Lee, & Shin,

2012). This suggests a negative link between self-monitoring

and Honesty-Humility. In particular, low Honesty-Humility

should be associated with the Other-Directedness subscale.

This is because they both share a tendency to be disingenuous

in interpersonal relations, specically, with respect to

presenting an inconsistent self to others in order to gain some-

thing from them (Ashton & Lee, 2007; Gangestad & Snyder,2000). Moreover, low Honesty-Humility may also be posi-

tively related to the Acting subscale, which to some degree

likely relies on an ability to ‘deceive’—that is, to the extent that

Acting entails assuming and convincingly portraying the per-

sona of someone else to observers (Gangestad & Snyder,

2000). Indeed, the previously described associations of high

self-monitoring to the tendency to lie and deceive others

(Gangestad & Snyder, 2000; Mcleod & Genereux, 2008) are

consistent with low levels of Honesty-Humility (Ashton &

Lee, 2007). Not surprising, therefore, researchers have found

a negative link (r =.42) between Honesty-Humility and

self-monitoring—

measured using Snyder ’s (1974) Self-

Monitoring Scale (Ashton & Lee, 2005). More recently,

Grieve (2011) found partial support for this relationship by

Self-Monitoring and Honesty-Humility 533

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Pers. 27: 532–544 (2013)

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using a different measure of self-monitoring (Lennox &

Wolfe, 1984). Grieve found that Honesty-Humility was neg-

atively related to the ‘ability to monitor self-presentation’

subscale of self-monitoring but not the ‘ sensitivity to expres-

sive behaviour of others’ subscale. Thus, in addition to Ex-

traversion, low Honesty-Humility appears to be an

important personality basis of self-monitoring.

The proposed dual nature of self-monitoring may also

be understood within the context of a prominent theoretical

model in the self-monitoring literature—Arkin’s (1981)

theory of acquisitive and protective self-presentation

styles. According to this theory, the way people present

themselves to the world can be captured by two motiva-

tional processes. Acquisitive self-monitoring is concerned

with self-presentation driven by a desire for social gain

and approval (Arkin, 1981; Wolfe, Lennox, & Cutler,

1986). This corresponds to the desire of high self-

monitors to ‘get ahead’ by actively managing how they

are perceived by others in an effort to garner social success

and rewards (Rauthmann, 2011). This is also conceptuallysimilar to low Honesty-Humility, which is driven by the

acquisition of material goods and willingness to condone

fraudulent acts for self-gain (Ashton & Lee, 2007).

Honesty-Humility also appears to share some conceptual

links with protective self-monitoring. Ashton and Lee

(2007) suggested that Honesty-Humility can be theoreti-

cally interpreted as altruism-driven—a motive that pushes

one who is high on Honesty-Humility to deal genuinely

with others ‘even when one might exploit them without

suffering retaliation’ (p. 156). In contrast, the individual

who is low on Honesty-Humility is driven by selsh mo-

tives. Protective self-monitoring also appears to have anunderlying self-serving motive; that is, to the extent that

the high protective self-monitor is motivated to get along

with others only to ‘protect ’ the self from social rejection

(Arkin, 1981; Wolfe et al., 1986).

In support of these postulations, Rauthmann (2011) recently

demonstrated that the protective and acquisitive aspects of self-

monitoring are both related to the so-called Dark Triad—

narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism (Paulhus &

Williams, 2002)—a group of traits that have in common a ten-

dency to manipulate and exploit others for the pursuit of selsh

gains. Interestingly, Lee and Ashton (2005) found that Honesty-

Humility relates substantially with each of the Dark Triad traits,

with correlations ranging from

.53 (Machiavellianism) to.72 (psychopathy). More recently, Lee, Ashton, Wiltshire,

Bourdage, Visser, and Gallucci (2012) demonstrated that the

core variance of the Dark Triad variables can be accounted

for by low Honesty-Humility.

The positive association of self-monitoring with Extraver-

sion may also be understood in terms of the protective and ac-

quisitive self-presentation styles. High protective self-monitors

attempt to minimize the negative repercussions of social rejec-

tion by putting up façades in social situations in order to facil-

itate acceptance. They are likely to be successful at this to the

extent that they possess extraverted qualities (i.e. outgoing,

talkative, energetic, and enthusiastic; Costa & McCrae, 1991)that enable them to acutely manoeuvre social situations in or-

der to stand out and incur social approval (rather than

rejection). Moreover, Rauthmann (2011) has proposed that

the link with Extraversion can also be understood from an ac-

quisitive perspective to the extent that Extraversion results in

feelings of social reward and success when the high self-

monitor effectively presents a favourable image of himself or

herself in social situations.

In sum, extant theoretical and empirical research to date

strongly indicates that Extraversion and low Honesty-Humility

are important personality bases of self-monitoring. A deeper un-

derstanding of this dual nature of self-monitoring is important

for a number of practical reasons. Although self-monitoring is

positively related to many indicators of success in life, the

preliminary evidence showing a negative co-variation with

Honesty-Humility is a signicant cause for concern. This is

because research indicates that low levels of Honesty-Humility

are associated with delinquency and antisocial behaviours

(Dunlop, Morrison, Koenig, & Silcox, 2012; Lee, Ashton, &

Shin, 2005), sexual promiscuity and sexual harassment (Ashton

& Lee, 2008; Bourdage, Lee, Ashton, & Perry, 2007; Lee,

Gizzarone, & Ashton, 2003), counterproductive work behav-iours (Lee, Ashton, & De Vries, 2005; Marcus, Lee, & Ashton,

2007) and unethical business decision making (Lee, Ashton,

Morrison, Cordery, & Dunlop, 2008). This suggests that high

self-monitoring may also be associated with these negative out-

comes. To date, however, there have been no further investiga-

tions into the low Honesty-Humility aspect of self-monitoring

following Ashton and Lee’s (2005) initial research. The issue

of the dual nature of self-monitoring was not the focus of past

research (Ashton & Lee, 2005; Grieve, 2011) and, as such, has

received minimal attention to date.

The present research

The present multi-study research sought to shed further light

on the proposed dual aspect of self-monitoring. Study 1 was

designed to test the proposition that Extraversion and

Honesty-Humility are the two most important broad personal-

ity factors associated with self-monitoring. This investigation

was conducted in two separate samples and contexts. Study 2

was designed to investigate the consequences of the proposed

dual nature of self-monitoring using two previously

unexamined outcomes: moral disengagement and ethical busi-

ness decision making.

STUDY 1

We began our investigation by exploring the most important

broad personality correlates of self-monitoring in an attempt

to corroborate and extend Lee and Ashton’s (2005) initial

ndings. These relationships were tested using multiple

sources (self-reports and peer reports) of self-monitoring

and HEXACO personality traits in an undergraduate student

sample. At a general level, demonstrating that the ndings

converge across multiple methods of measurement of the

same traits is pertinent for illustrating the robustness of the

proposed dual nature of self-monitoring (Campbell & Fiske,1959; Oh, Wang, & Mount, 2011). This is in line with

Hofstee’s (1994) recommendation that researchers provide

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evidence beyond self-reports when attempting to establish

relationships among personality constructs. Moreover, sole

reliance on self-reports may limit the robustness of conclu-

sions, as observer reports of personality may also capture

important unique variance in understanding the relationship

among constructs (Oh, Lee, Ashton, & De Vries, 2011).

Thus, we employed both self-ratings and observer ratings

in the rst sample. In line with past research, we expect

that Honesty-Humility and Extraversion will demonstrate the

strongest and most consistent associations with self-monitoring

across rating sources.

Hypothesis 1: Among the major personality dimensions, Extra-version and Honesty-Humility will emerge as the strongest andmost consistent correlates of self-monitoring.

We further tested the proposed relationships between

self-monitoring, Extraversion and Honesty-Humility in an

employment context. This allowed for a test of the generaliz-

ability of the proposed relationships in a sample of adults in

an employment setting. Although only self-reports wereavailable, this is important because a substantive body of

research on self-monitoring has been conducted in the work

domain (e.g. Barrick et al., 2005; Blakely et al., 2003; Bono

& Vey, 2007; Day et al., 2002; Kilduff & Day, 1994).

Method

Participants and procedure

Sample 1. The rst sample consisted of a total of 258

undergraduate students from a mid-sized Canadian university.

Of these, 65% were female, and the average age was

20.63 years (SD = 3.96). Participants arrived in dyads, withclose friends attending together. Each person completed a

self-report questionnaire and a peer-report questionnaire. In

order to help participants feel comfortable answering honestly,

we ensured that participants sat at separate tables, and if this

was not possible, they were separated by a large divider. The

participants were awarded research credits or paid $20 for

participating in the study.

The peers consisted of 63% female participants, with an

average age of 20.69 years (SD = 4.25). Participants

reported knowing their peers an average of 4.75 years

(SD = 4.31), and this corresponded with the estimates pro-

vided by the peers. We also obtained subjective ratingsof how well participants reported knowing each other

using a 10-point rating scale and found an average rating

of 7.75 (SD = 1.59).

Sample 2. Participants from the second sample were

employees in the Services department of a not-for-prot

human services organization in Canada. The total organization

size was 358 employees, 226 of whom worked in the Services

department. One hundred and ten Services employees

participated in the study, indicating a response rate of about

49%. The average age of respondents was 41.52 years

(SD = 11.19). Approximately 78% were women, and the

average tenure with the organization of 38.26 months(SD = 60.35 months). The present data were collected as part

of a larger validation study at the organization. The authors

attended team meetings during which employees were

asked to complete a number of questionnaires that included

personality scales.

Measures

Personality. In both samples, personality was measuredusing the HEXACO Personality Inventory Revised

(HEXACO PI-R; Lee & Ashton, 2004). This scale assesses

six personality factors: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality,

Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and

Openness to Experience. The items are scored on a 5-point

scale (1= strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).

In Sample 1, the 100-item HEXACO PI-R was adminis-

tered, and self-reports and peer reports were obtained. The

internal consistency reliabilities for the self-report scales

were acceptable: Honesty-Humility (a = .80), Emotionality

(a= .83), Extraversion (a = .85), Agreeableness (a= .85),

Conscientiousness (a = .82) and Openness to Experience

(a= .82). The reliability estimates for the peer-report scales

were also acceptable: Honesty-Humility (a= .85), Emotional-

ity (a= .88), Extraversion (a= .87), Agreeableness (a= .89),

Conscientiousness (a = .86) and Openness to Experience

(a= .84). In Sample 2, because of pressures from management

to keep the survey short, a limited number of items were se-

lected to measure each personality trait. Honesty-Humility

was assessed using 12 items (a = .74) from the HEXACO Fair-

ness, Sincerity and Modesty subscales, whereas Extraversion

was assessed using eight items (a = .66) obtained from the

HEXACO Liveliness and Social Boldness subscales.

Self-monitoring. In Sample 1, self-monitoring was assessed

using self-reports and peer reports on the 18-item Self-

Monitoring Scale (Snyder & Gangestad, 1986). Responses

were assessed on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree

to 5 = strongly agree). The internal consistency

reliabilities for the self-reports and peer-report measures

were .73 and .72, respectively. We also calculated

scores for the three subscales of Acting, Extraversion

and Other-Directedness. The reliability estimates (self-

reports and peer reports, respectively) were as follows:

Acting (a= .74; .67), Extraversion (a = .63; .65) and

Other-directedness (a= .45; .54) subscales. These somewhat

lower values are quite similar to those reported in past research. For instance, Hoyle and Lennox’s (1991)

comprehensive study found reliability estimates of .70

for the total 18-item self-report scale, and .64, .64 and

.46 for the Acting, Extraversion and Other-Directedness

subscales, respectively.

In Sample 2, self-monitoring was assessed using self-

reports on the 10-item Self-Monitoring Scale from the Inter-

national Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg et al., 2006).

Responses were assessed on a 5-point Likert scale

(1 = strongly disagree t o 5= strongly agree). The obtained

reliability of this measure was .79. This IPIP scale (Gold-

berg et al., 2006) was developed to closely reect self-monitoring as measured by Snyder (1974), but was not

designed to measure the three subscales.



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Results

The means, standard deviations and correlations among

study variables can be found in Table 1. In examining the

correlations among self-ratings and peer ratings of personal-

ity and self-monitoring, we used a multi-trait-multi-method

approach (Campbell & Fiske, 1959), looking at the correla-

tions between the following: (i) self-rated HEXACO traitsand self-rated self-monitoring; (ii) self-rated HEXACO

traits and peer-rated self-monitoring; (iii) peer-rated

HEXACO traits and self-rated self-monitoring; and (iv)

peer-rated HEXACO traits and peer-rated self-monitoring.2

In terms of overall self-monitoring, across all four sets of correla-

tions, the links between self-monitoring, Extraversion and

Honesty-Humility were replicated. Consistent with past research,

Extraversion was strongly and signicantly correlated with self-

monitoring across sources (range = .34 to .47; average r = .40).3

Moreover, as expected, Honesty-Humility emerged as a statisti-

cally signicant correlate of self-monitoring across sources

(range =.15 to .42; average r =.30). In comparison, open-

ness to experience—the next trait most consistently related to

self-monitoring—demonstrated relatively modest associations

(range = .15 to .27; average r = .19). All other traits demonstrated

weakand/or inconsistent associations with self-monitoringacross

source (thenext strongest averagecorrelation was Agreeableness,

r =.15). Taken together, the results obtained from both samples

provide strong support for hypothesis 1. Last, we found a

moderate correlation of .42 between self-ratings and peer-ratings

of self-monitoring, indicating that students can judge the self-

monitoring of their peers to some extent.

Table 1 also shows the correlations with the self-monitoring

subscales. Across sources, Honesty-Humility was moderately

correlated with Other-directedness (range=

.11 to

.54, aver-age r =.31) and Acting (range =.16 to .31, average

r =.24) but relatively weaker with the Extraversion subscale

(range =.01 to .16, average r =.09). In contrast, Extraver-

sion was most strongly associated with the Extraversion

subscale (range = .40 to .64, average r = .54), moderately with

Acting (range = .31 to .42, average r = .37) and weakly with

Other-Directedness (range=.21 to .03, average r =.09).

The means, standard deviations and inter-correlations

among the study variables for the adult work sample are

presented at the bottom of Table 1. The results show that

overall self-monitoring is signicantly correlated with Extra-

version (r = .42, p< .001) and Honesty-Humility (r =.38,

p< .001). These results replicate the pattern of correlations

obtained in the student sample in an employment context.

Brief discussion

The results of Study 1 provide support for the dual nature of self-

monitoring. Our results corroborated past ndings that have

found the primary personality correlate of self-monitoring to

be Extraversion. The magnitude of this correlation across differ-

ent sources was similar to that reported in previous studies

(Barrick et al., 2005; Bono & Vey, 2007; Briggs & Cheek,

1988). Study 1 also demonstrated that, across different sources,

high self-monitoring is also associated with low Honesty-

Humility. Moreover, we demonstrate that these ndings gener-

alized to an employed adult sample. Past research has shown

that high self-monitors may be more prone towards engaging

in deceit, manipulation and status-driven motivation (e.g.Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Similarly, low Honesty-Humility

has at its core the tendency to be duplicitous and status-

oriented, and correlates highly with the Dark Triad personality

traits (Lee & Ashton, 2005; Lee et al., 2012). The fact that the

negative association between these two traits generalized across

both self-reports and peer-reports indicates that these correla-

tions are not solely due to same source effects. As such, these

features strengthen our condence in the conclusions drawn.

However, we do note that a possible limitation of our study de-

sign is that participants were allowed to choose which of their

friends to bring along to the study. This may have introduced

some degree of selection bias as participants may have invitedonly good friends that are more likely to endorse a view of the

individual that is similar to the participant ’s self-views.4

At the facet level, Honesty-Humility appears to be mod-

erately associated with Other-Directedness and, to a slightly

lesser degree, the Acting subscale of the Self-Monitoring

Scale. The stronger association with the Other-

Directedness subscale is in line with Grieve’s (2011) nding

that Honesty-Humility was most strongly associated with

the component of Lennox and Wolfe’s (1984) self-

monitoring measure that pertains to one’s ability to modify

behaviour in response to social cues (rather than a sensitivity

or ability to detect these cues). The association with the

Extraversion subscale was much smaller in comparison. Incontrast, HEXACO Extraversion was most strongly associ-

ated with the Extraversion subscale, followed by the Acting

subscale. The observed pattern of correlations therefore sug-

gests that Honesty-Humility is most closely associated with

Other-Directedness; HEXACO Extraversion is most aligned

with the Extraversion subscale; and both Honesty-Humility

and Extraversion are implicated in the Acting subscale.

These differential patterns of relationships indicate that it

may useful to explore the consequences of the dual nature

of the self-monitoring construct by using the subscales of

the Self-Monitoring Scale, in addition to analyses using the

overall scale.

2We also tested the extent to which the cross-source correlations were af-

fected by the length of time that participants had known each other and/or how well they reported knowing each other. The results showed that acrossall sets of analyses, the length of time or ‘how well known’ generally did not signicantly moderate the relationships between (i) self-monitoring andHonesty-Humility, (ii) self-monitoring and Extraversion and (iii) self-report self-monitoring and peer-report self-monitoring. The only exceptionwas that the relationship between self-ratings of self-monitoring and peer-ratings of Extraversion was moderated by length of time known (but not how well known): b =.04, t = 2.15, p< .05, Δ R2 = .02. This relationshipwas stronger for those who had known their peers for a longer period—that is, one standard deviation above the mean (b = .62, p< .01)—versus a shorter (one standard deviation below the mean) duration (b= .25, p< .05).However, given that this is the only relationship observed out of 10 tested,we do not place emphasis on this result because of the potential of capitaliz-ing on chance.3For all of the ‘average correlations’ reported for Study 1, at the suggestionof a reviewer, averages were computed by transforming each correlationusing Fisher ’s z-transformation, nding the average and then reversing thetransformation for the new mean. This approach is described in detail byThorndike (2007). 4We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this issue to our attention.



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STUDY 2

Study 1 established that self-monitoring can be understood in

terms of high Extraversion and low Honesty-Humility, at

least among broad personality dimensions. Building on this

research, an important line of inquiry that warrants further at-

tention pertains to the potential implications of the low

Honesty-Humility correlate of self-monitoring. To this end,

Study 2 was designed to test the effects of self-monitoring

on outcomes that are likely to be the result of this dishonest

side. Specically, we examined the extent to which self-

monitoring relates to unethical business decision making,as well as the potential mediating effect of moral disengage-

ment (Bandura, 1986) in understanding this association.

Last, we tested the proposition that these relationships can

be explained primarily by low Honesty-Humility but not

high Extraversion.

Self-monitoring and unethical decision making

A potential negative consequence of the low Honesty-

Humility aspect of self-monitoring is the propensity to make

unethical business decisions. Gangestad & Snyder (2000)

have suggested that high self-monitoring is driven in part

by the motivation for self-gain and the need to acquire social

status and success. This is also in line with the theoreticalinterpretation of acquisitive self-monitoring, which high-

lights a desire for social gain that is driven by a ‘get ahead’

mentality (Wolfe et al., 1986). We propose that such a

motive may increase the probability that a high self-

monitor will make unethical business decisions, particularly

those judged to benet the self and which allows the high

self-monitor to get ahead in life. A similar drive for self-

gain and social status is also inherent in low Honesty-

Humility. Not surprisingly, research studies have found a

positive association between low Honesty-Humility and

unethical business decision making (e.g. Lee et al., 2008;

Perugini & Leone, 2009; Van Gelder & De Vries, 2012). A

high self-monitor may further reason that an unethical deci-

sion that brings about nancial success may help to elevatehis or her social status and ultimately foster social acceptance

rather than rejection by others (i.e. protective self-

monitoring). These arguments indirectly suggest that high

self-monitors may be likely to make unethical business

decisions. Moreover, self-monitoring has also been linked

to discrete forms of unethical intentions, such as willing-

ness to condoning lies and a tendency to deceive and

manipulate others (Grieve, 2011; Mcleod & Genereux,

2008; Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Hence, we propose that

self-monitoring will be associated with unethical business

decision making.

Hypothesis 2: Self-monitoring will be positively related tounethical decision making.

Table 1. Means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables in Study 1 (student sample and adult working sample)

M SD

Self-report self-monitoring Peer-report self-monitoring

SM Total Acting Other-D Extra SM Total Acting Other-D Extra

Student sample M 3.04 2.91 2.97 3.31 2.93 2.82 2.75 3.27

SD .47 .70 .58 .61 .44 .57 .62 .66HEXACOSelf-report Honesty-Humility 3.19 0.57 .35** .21** .42** .16** .15* .16** .11*† .01Emotionality 3.46 0.59 .09 .15** .08 .09 .03 .05 .00 .02Extraversion 3.50 0.55 .41** .40** .21** .62** .38** .35** .03 .40**Agreeableness 2.92 0.59 .18** .16** .16** .03 .05 .05 .02 .03Conscientiousness 3.49 0.54 .03 .05 .10 .14* .01 .02 .05 .04Openness 3.35 0.61 .27** .32** .03 .14* .15* .22** .01 .04Peer-report Honesty-Humility 3.19 0.60 .27** .26** .12*† .13* .42** .31** .54** .05Emotionality 3.31 0.63 .09 .13* .01 .02 .02 .05 .11 .00Extraversion 3.52 0.57 .34** .31** .07 .45** .47** .42** .11 .64**Agreeableness 3.10 0.65 .19** .22** .00 .11 .17** .13 .17** .06Conscientiousness 3.49 0.57 .09 .16* .06 .01 .11 .09 .26** .10

Openness 3.08 0.60 .15* .18** .04 .09 .17** .23** .05 .03Peer-report SM Total .42** .42** .03 .34**Acting .45** .48** .03 .33**Other-D .14* .13* .09 .03Extra .23** .21** .06 .33**Adult work sampleSelf-report SM Total 2.47 0.58 —Honesty-Humility 4.05 0.51 .38***Extraversion 3.52 0.52 .42***

Note: Student sample: N = 258; adult work sample: N = 110. The mean and standard deviation values in parentheses are those obtained for the International

Personality Item Pool Self-Monitoring Scale used in the adult work sample. Other-D, Other-Directedness; Extra, Extraversion; SM, Self-Monitoring; SM Total,

total Self-Monitoring Scale score. * p< .05; ** p< .01; *** p< .001. †

One-tailed.



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The mediating effects of moral disengagement

One potential explanation for the proposed link between

self-monitoring and unethical decision making may be the

propensity to morally disengage (Bandura, 1986). Bandura

(1986) developed the concept of moral disengagement to

explain how people come to engage in detrimental conducts

that are otherwise incongruent with their moral standards.

Social cognitive theory proposes that self-management

of detrimental conducts occur through cognitive, self-

regulatory mechanisms (Bandura, 1999). According to

Bandura and colleagues, people evade self-imposed

sanctions for engaging in negative conducts by using a num-

ber of ‘sociocognitive manoeuvres’ that deactivate normal

self-regulatory processes, thereby disengaging their moral

standards from detrimental conduct (Bandura, Caprara,

Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, & Regalia, 2001). Bandura (1999)

has described eight such mechanisms of moral disengage-

ment that ultimately enable a person to engage in detrimental

conduct with little guilt and self-censure. They include

moral justication (cognitively misconstruing harm toothers so as to seem morally justiable), euphemistic

labelling (using morally neutral diction to make unethical

conduct seem less threatening), advantageous comparison

(making an unethical conduct seem less harmful by compar-

ing it with more injurious unethical actions), displacement of

responsibility (passing culpability for one’s unethical

conduct to the directives of authority gures), diffusion of

responsibility (abating personal liability for unethical

conduct when such actions are taken as part of a larger group

or collective), disregarding or distorting the consequences

(minimizing, forgetting or even actively discrediting

evidence of harm caused to others), dehumanization(sanctioning immoral acts by casting victims as subhuman

or lacking human qualities) and attribution of blame

(blaming the recipients of harmful behaviours for instigating

such actions) (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli,

1996; Detert, Treviño, & Sweitzer, 2008).

Detert et al. (2008) recently argued that moral disen-

gagement mechanisms also disassociate contemplated

actions from the guilt or self-censure that would otherwise

prevent it (p. 378). In particular, moral disengagement

mechanisms may operate to minimize guilt feelings associ-

ated with thinking about engaging in unethical behaviours.

In support of this, Detert et al. found that moral disengage-

ment was positively related to unethical decision making.We propose that moral disengagement can help to explain

the relationship between self-monitoring and unethical

decision making. The high self-monitor who contemplates

an unethical course of action in order to gain social success

may eliminate any guilt or self-censure through moral

disengagement mechanisms. For instance, the high self-

monitor may justify the need to make an unethical business

decision by reasoning that the resulting nancial success

will help to achieve a favourable public image, which

is necessary in order to get ahead in an otherwise

dif cult and harsh world (i.e. serving the acquisitive self-

monitoring motive). The high self-monitor may also reasonthat the resulting nancial success and social status will

bring about acceptance from others who may otherwise

reject him or her from their social circles (i.e. serving the

protective self-monitoring motive). These are examples of

the moral justi cation mechanism (for instance, a sample

moral justication item is as follows: ‘Playing dirty is

sometimes necessary in order to achieve noble ends’;

Moore, Detert, Treviño, Baker, & Mayer, 2012). As another

example, the high self-monitor may engage in euphemistic

language strategies to make their unethical intentions sound

less threatening. For instance, making unethical decisions

that result in social or nancial gain may be construed as

‘being politically savvy’ or ‘playing the game’ rather than

unethical per se.

Hypothesis 3: The relationship between self-monitoring andunethical decision making will be mediated by moraldisengagement.

Last, in light of the preceding arguments, we posit that

the negative relations of self-monitoring to unethical decisionmaking, and the potential mediating effects of moral disen-

gagement, will be explained by its low Honesty-Humility

side but not the extraverted side.

Hypothesis 4: The link between self-monitoring and unethicaldecision making, and through moral disengagement, will beexplained by Honesty-Humility but not Extraversion.

Method

Participants and procedureA total of 215 undergraduate Canadian students enrolled in

multiple sections of an introductory business course in orga-

nizational behaviour were recruited as part of a larger project

on individual and team characteristics. About 48% of respon-

dents were female, and the average age was 21.8 years old

(SD = 3.95). Students were randomly assigned into teams of

four to six members and worked on a major class project that

accounted for 40% of their nal class grade. At the start of

the semester, students were invited to voluntarily participate

in a multi-wave research study (at approximately 1-month

intervals) in exchange for partial course credits. Personality

questionnaires were administered at the start of the semester

(time 1), followed by the moral disengagement measure at time 2. At time 3, participants completed the ethical business

decision-making scale.

Measures

Personality. As in Study 1, Honesty-Humility and

Extraversion were measured using the 100-item version of the

HEXACO PI (Lee & Ashton, 2004). The observed internal

consistency reliabilities were .82 and .79 for Honesty-Humility

and Extraversion, respectively.

Self-monitoring. Self-monitoring was assessed again using

the 18-item Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder & Gangestad,1986)—see the Method section in Study 1. The reliability

of the total Self-Monitoring Scale was .74; and for the



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Acting, Extraversion and Other-Directedness subscales, the

reliabilities were .69, .49 and .61, respectively.

Moral disengagement. Moral disengagement was measured

using the modied version by Detert et al. (2008) of the 32-

item scale originally developed by Bandura et al. (1996) for

use with children and adolescents. This scale was modied

for use with an older population. The resulting 24-item scale assesses the eight subcomponents of moral

disengagement and was shown to possess acceptable

overall scale reliability (a= .87) and strong initial construct

and predictive validity evidence (Detert et al., 2008).

Responses to the questions were made on a 5-point Likert

scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) t o 5 (strongly

agree). Interested readers may refer to Detert et al. for a

complete list of items in this scale.

Ethical decision making. Participants completed a revised

version of the Business Ethical Decision Making Dilemma

scale (Lee et al., 2008). This scale contains 10 questions

that require participants to estimate how likely (1 = veryunlikely t o 4= very likely) they are to choose a course of

action that would yield personal or organizational prots,

even though it may potentially cause harm to other

individuals or to society at large (Lee et al., 2008). The

scale was scored such that high scores indicated a higher

likelihood to make unethical decisions. The reliability of

this measure was .79.

Analyses

The hypotheses were tested using the PROCESS procedure

in SPSS (Hayes, 2013). PROCESS incorporates traditional

regression analysis tests (Hypotheses 1–2), as well asbootstrapping methodologies for testing indirect effects

(Hypotheses 3–4). In contrast to traditional signicance test-

ing, mediation is supported to the extent that the condence

interval (CI) around the estimated mediated effect does not

contain zero (Preacher, Rucker, & Hayes, 2007). In the

present study, 95% bias-corrected CIs were calculated on

the basis of 10 000 bootstrapped samples. Hypothesis 4 was

tested using two models. In the rst model, Extraversion

was entered as a control variable in the model testing the

indirect effects of self-monitoring on unethical decision mak-

ing through moral disengagement. A second model was then

specied with Honesty-Humility as the control. This allowed

us to determine which of the two personality traits was

responsible for the observed effects.

Results

Table 2 shows the means, standard deviations and inter-

correlations among the study variables. The bivariate correla-tions among the hypothesized variables were generally in the

predicted direction and were statistically signicant. Consistent

with the results from Study 1, the two strongest correlates of

overall self-monitoring were Extraversion, r = .42, p< .01, and

Honesty-Humility, r =.38, p< .01. In addition, similar to

Study 1, we found that Honesty-Humility was moderately neg-

atively related to the Other-Directedness subscale, r =.32,

p< .001, but weakly to the Extraversion subscale, r =.15,

p< .05, whereas HEXACO Extraversion was strongly and

positively related to the Extraversion self-monitoring subscale,

r = .62, p< .001, but weakly to the Other-Directedness

subscale, r =

.11, p>

.05. Both Extraversion, r = .39, p<

.001,and Honesty-Humility, r =.31, p< .001, were related to the

Acting subscale. These trends clearly replicate the ndings from

Study 1. In support of our hypothesized relationships, self-

monitoring positively correlated with moral disengagement,

r = .19, p< .01, and unethical decision making, r = .26, p< .01,

providing initial support for Hypotheses 1 and 2. The relation-

ship between moral disengagement and unethical decision

making was moderate and signicant, r = .47, p< .01.

Table 3 provides the results obtained from the regression

and bootstrapping analyses. The regression results showed

that overall self-monitoring was positively related to moral

disengagement, b = .15, p< .05, providing support for

Hypothesis 1. In addition, overall self-monitoring had botha direct positive effect on unethical business decision mak-

ing, b = .21, p< .01, and an indirect effect through moral

disengagement, r = 0.08 (CI = 0.002 to 0.16). Hence,

Hypothesis 2 and 3 were supported. In order to test Hypoth-

esis 4, the proposed mediation was tested controlling for

HEXACO Extraversion. The results showed that self-

monitoring retained a signicant direct effect on unethical

decision making, b = .17, p< .05, as well as an indirect effect

through moral disengagement, r = 0.13, CI = 0.05 to 0.23.

This indicates that the direct and indirect effects of self-

monitoring on unethical business decision making cannot

be explained by HEXACO Extraversion. These analyses

Table 2. Means, standard deviations and correlations among the study variables (Study 2)

Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Honesty-Humility 3.25 0.572 Extraversion 3.51 0.45 .123 Moral disengagement 2.22 0.40 .40** .094 Unethical DM 1.94 0.49 .47** .12 .47**5 SM Acting 2.91 0.63 .31** .39** .19** .21**6 SM Other-Direct 2.95 0.65 .32** .11 .22** .15* .25**7 SM Extraversion 3.32 0.56 .15* .62** .06 .21** .41** .048 SM Total 3.03 0.45 .38** .42** .19** .26** .87** .58** .62**

Note: N = 215. SM, Self-monitoring; SM Total, total Self-Monitoring Scale score; Other Direct, Other-Directedness; Unethical DM, Unethical business decision

making. * p< .05; ** p< .01.



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were repeated with Honesty-Humility as the control variable.

The results showed that self-monitoring no longer demon-

strated a direct effect on unethical decision making, b = .11,

p> .05, nor did it have an indirect effect through moral

disengagement, r =0.01, CI=

0.07 to 0.08. These resultssuggest that the direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring

on unethical business decision making can be explained by

the low Honesty-Humility aspect of self-monitoring.

The aforementioned analyses were repeated for each of theself-monitoring subscales. The Acting, Other-Directednessand Extraversion aspects of self-monitoring were all positivelycorrelated with unethical business decision making, r s=.21,.15 and .21, ps< .05, respectively. However, Acting, r = .19, p.01, and Other-Directedness, r = .22, p< .01, were related tomoral disengagement but not Extraversion, r =.06, p> .05.The direct and indirect effects of these subscales on unethicaldecision making were also tested. The results showed that

moral disengagement mediated the effects of Other-Directedness, r = 0.07, CI= 0.02 to 0.13, and Acting,r = 0.06, CI = 0.01 to 0.11, on unethical business decisionmaking; this mediation effect was, however, not supportedfor the Extraversion subscale, r =0.07, CI =0.26 to 0.09.In these analyses, Acting, b = .11, p< .05, and Extraversion,b = .20, p< .01, also demonstrated direct effects on unethicaldecision making, but not Other-Directedness, b = .05, p> .05.This suggests that the effect of Other-Directedness (but not theother subscales) on unethical decision making occurs primarilythrough moral disengagement.

Similar to the results obtained for the overall Self-

Monitoring Scale, the direct and indirect effects of Other-

Directedness and Acting on unethical business decisionmaking through moral disengagement remained unchanged

after controlling for HEXACO Extraversion. However,

these effects were no longer supported after controlling for

Honesty-Humility. In contrast, the Extraversion subscale

retained a direct positive effect (b = .16, p< .01) on

unethical business decision making, after controlling for

Honesty-Humility (even though there was no support for an indirect effect through moral disengagement). This sug-

gests that the Extraversion subscale shares a portion of its

variance with unethical business decision making that can-

not be explained by low Honesty-Humility.

Brief discussion

Research studies have found that self-monitoring relates to a

number of positive outcomes (e.g. Day et al., 2002;

Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). In comparison, fewer studies

have examined the potential detrimental aspects of this con-

struct. In light of the evidence from Study 1 indicating that

self-monitoring has a low Honesty-Humility side, Study 2was carried out to investigate the potential repercussions of

this association. The results demonstrated that high self-

monitors are more likely to make unethical business

decisions. We also found that the tendency to use moral

disengagement mechanisms as a way of minimizing feelings

of guilt associated with unethical decisions is one explana-

tion for the link between self-monitoring and unethical deci-

sion making. To date, no research has linked self-monitoring

to these important ethics-related consequences. Last, the

results supported our thesis that these negative, ethics-

related outcomes can be explained by the low Honesty-

Humility correlate of self-monitoring, rather than its Extra-version correlate. In other words, low Honesty-Humility

is pertinent to understanding the extent to which high

Table 3. Direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring on unethical business decision making (Study 2)

Moral disengagement Unethical business decision making

b SE b SE r Low CI High CI

Model 1: The direct and indirect effects of self-monitoringSelf-monitoring .15* 0.07 .21** 0.07

Moral disengagement — —

.55*** 0.08 R2 .03* .27***Bootstrap resultsMediator: Moral disengagement 0.08 0.002 0.16Model 2: The direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring: Controlling for ExtraversionSelf-monitoring .22** 0.07 .17* 0.08Extraversion .20** 0.07 .12 0.08Moral disengagement — — .58*** 0.08 R

2 .07** .28***Bootstrap resultsMediator: Moral disengagement 0.13 0.05 0.23Model 3: The direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring: Controlling for Honesty-HumilitySelf-monitoring .01 0.06 .11 0.07Honesty-Humility .29*** 0.05 .26*** 0.06Moral disengagement — — .42*** 0.08

R

2

.17*** .33***Bootstrap resultsMediator: Moral disengagement 0.01 0.07 0.08

Note: N = 183. r represents the mediation effect. CI, condence interval (95% bias-corrected and accelerated) based on 10,000 bootstrap samples. Boldface type

highlights a signicant effect as determined by the exclusion of zero from the 95% CI. * p< .05; ** p< .01, *** p< .001.



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self-monitors engage in morally questionable cognitive

processes and decisions.5

Further investigations into the self-monitoring subscales

provided additional support for our propositions. The results

revealed similar mediatory effects of moral disengagement

on the links between Acting and Other-Directedness and

unethical business decision making. This was, however, not

the case for the Extraversion subscale. Although the Extra-

version subscale was related to unethical decision making,

most likely because of its shared variance with the other

components of self-monitoring, the use of moral disengage-

ment tactics may be more readily attributable to those behav-

iours that fall within the Acting and Other-Directedness

domain. Specically, compared with the Extraversion

subscale, the Acting and Other-Directedness behaviours

may be more closely associated with a tendency towards

deception through image control (particularly Other-

Directedness) and, as such, may be more likely serviced by

moral disengagement tactics. It is therefore not surprising

that low Honesty-Humility was again implicated inexplaining the links between these self-monitoring subscales

and unethical business decision making through moral

disengagement. In sum, analyses of the self-monitoring

subscales revealed differential patterns of relationships and

support the notion that these subscales should be investigated

independently. However, we encourage readers to exercise

caution in the interpretation of these ndings given the lower

levels of reliability associated with these subscales. This

issue is not unique to the present study, however, as past

studies have found similarly low reliabilities for these

subscales (e.g. Hoyle & Lennox, 1991).

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The present multi-study research was designed to shed light

on the dual nature of the self-monitoring construct. On the

basis of past research, we proposed that self-monitoring re-

lates primarily and most consistently to two important major

personality dimensions: Extraversion and (low) Honesty-

Humility.6 In light of the extensive research that has been

conducted on Extraversion as a correlate of self-monitoring,

this paper sought to establish the consequences of the low

Honesty-Humility side of self-monitoring. A number of

important ndings emerged from this investigation. First,

across multiple samples, we found consistent evidence that

Extraversion was the strongest correlate of self-monitoring

(as measured by the 18-item Self-Monitoring Scale;

Snyder & Gangestad, 1986), followed closely by low

Honesty-Humility. This association generalized across dif-

ferent rating sources and different samples, including an

adult work sample. These ndings replicate Ashton and

Lee’s (2005) initial observation of a negative association

between Honesty-Humility and self-monitoring and

provide strong evidence of the dual nature of self-

monitoring. Second, Study 2 showed that self-monitoring

and its three subscales were positively related to unethical

business decision making. In addition, overall self-

monitoring—as well as the Acting and Other-Directedness

components—also demonstrated an indirect effect on

unethical business decision making through moral disen-gagement. Additionally, we showed that these negative

outcomes of self-monitoring were primarily due to the

low Honesty-Humility side of self-monitoring but not

the extraverted side. As noted earlier, past research has

found that high self-monitors are more likely to engage

in impression management, to condone deceit in order to

gain favours, as well as engage in deception in romantic

relationships (Gangestad & Snyder, 2000; Mcleod &

Genereux, 2008; Turnley & Bolino, 2001). More recently,

Grieves (2011) found that high self-monitoring was

positively associated with self-reported tendencies to engage

in emotional manipulation. Not surprisingly, these same im-pression management and emotional manipulation tactics have

been associated with low Honesty-Humility (e.g. Bourdage

et al., 2012, 2009; Grieves, 2011). Taken together, the

results of the present research more clearly and directly dem-

onstrate the role of low Honesty-Humility in understanding

the negative effects of self-monitoring on two previously

unexamined ethics-related outcomes.

Implications and future research

High self-monitoring has been associated with success in

different domains of social life and, as such, is often treated

as an adaptive construct. The present research, however,shows that high self-monitors are also likely to entertain

unethical cognitions and decisions. This may be problematic

in the workplace, for instance, where high self-monitors are

likely to be viewed positively by others and promoted to po-

sitions of authority (Day et al., 2002). Moreover, there are

likely to be other unfavourable outcomes that may result

from high self-monitors’ propensities to morally disengage.

Bandura et al. (1996) have also shown that children and ad-

olescents who engage in moral disengagement are less likely

to engage in prosocial behaviours and more likely to be

prone to aggression. A recent multi-study investigation

(Moore et al., 2012) found that individuals who have a higher propensity to morally disengage are more likely to

engage in a number of unethical behaviours, including

5As noted by a reviewer, it is also possible that the relationship between self-

monitoring and these negative outcomes is moderated by an individual’slevel of Honesty-Humility (or Extraversion). We however found no empiri-cal support for the moderating effects of Honesty-Humility or Extraversionon the relationships between self-monitoring (or its subscales) and unethicalbusiness decision making and moral disengagement. We also tested a morecomprehensive moderated mediation model (using PROCESS) where the di-rect and indirect effects of self-monitoring on unethical decision making,through moral disengagement, were conditional on the Honesty-Humility(or Extraversion) levels of the participants. Again, the results did not yieldsupport for these models.6At the suggestion of a reviewer, we investigated whether investigatingHEXACO personality factors at the facet level in association with self-monitoring could give any further insight as to the nature of these relation-ships. Across six sets of correlations (four within Study 1 Sample 1, onewithin Study 1 Sample 2, and one for the Study 2 Sample), facet level anal-yses indicated that all four H-H facets related similarly to self-monitoring.On the other hand, whereas all Extraversion facets had moderate relation-ships with self-monitoring, the facet of Social Boldness (which assessesone’s comfort or condence within a variety of social situations) had theconsistently strongest relationship with self-monitoring.



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stealing, lying and cheating. These individuals showed a

greater tendency to engage in fraudulent activity and made

more self-serving decisions that place others at jeopardy.

Moreover, self-monitoring also demonstrated a direct

effect on ethical business decision making. This suggests that

there may be other explanatory mechanisms for understand-

ing why high self-monitors make unethical decisions that

should be explored in the future. In addition, future studies

should also be devoted to investigating other implications

of the low Honesty-Humility nature of self-monitoring. For

instance, Honesty-Humility is a strong predictor of delin-

quency, antisocial behaviours, sexual harassment proclivity

and cheating behaviours (Hersheld, Cohen, & Thompson,

2012; Lee, Ashton, & De Vries, 2005; Lee et al., 2003;

O’Neill, Lewis, & Carswell, 2011). As such, future studies

should examine the potential links between self-monitoring

and similar negative outcomes.

Similar to past research (Cheek, 1982; Wymer & Penner,

1985), we observed a moderate relationship between self-

ratings and peer ratings of self-monitoring in Study 1. Past research has further shown that the magnitude of this self-

peer agreement is roughly the same for high self-monitors

as it is for low self-monitors (Gangestad & Snyder,

2000). As noted by a reviewer, this observation is some-

what disconcerting because if those who rate themselves

as high self-monitors are readily judged by their peers as

high self-monitors, then the objective of self-monitoring

(convincingly presenting differing ‘favourable’ images to

others) would have failed. This raises the question of

whether there are individual differences in the ability to

be an effective high self-monitor. For instance, past

research has shown that the effective use of impressionmanagement tactics—a set of behaviours related to self-

monitoring—depends on the political skills of the impres-

sion manager (e.g. Harris, Kacmar, Zivnuska, & Shaw,

2007). A review of the self-monitoring subscales, however,

showed moderate correlations between self-ratings and

peer ratings of Extraversion (r = .33) and Acting (r = .48),

but not Other-Directedness (r = .09). This suggests that,

unlike the other sub-facets, participants are unable to judge

the Other-Directedness of their peers. This is worth noting

because Other-Directedness embodies the fundamental,

chameleon-like attribute of the high self-monitor —that is,

it describes the extent to which the individual puts on

different favourable facades to different people. The resultsindicate that perhaps peers are not capable of judging this

pertinent aspect of high self-monitors after all. Future

research is, however, necessary to replicate these ndings

before substantive conclusions are drawn, particularly given

the lower reliabilities of the self-monitoring subscales in the

present study.

Limitations

The present research has some limitations that warrant

consideration. First, we generally observed low internal

consistency reliability estimates for the subscales of theSelf-Monitoring Scale. Although these reliability estimates

are similar to those that have been reported in past research

(e.g. Hoyle & Lennox, 1991), the low reliability of these

subscales may have had negative effects on the observed

relationships reported in this study. Another limitation is that

the ndings in Study 2 were based on same source data,

which may limit the inferences made from this study. To

minimize the effects of same source biases, Study 2 incorpo-

rated a lagged design that separated measures of the indepen-

dent, mediator and outcome variables by time (i.e. across

three periods). This does not, however, alleviate concerns

regarding the external validity of the ndings obtained in

Study 2. In particular, this study found a link between self-

monitoring and unethical business decision making by using

a sample of undergraduate business students. The generaliz-

ability of this association to decision making in the work-

place, however, needs to be established. Last, we should

note that although we focused on two major personality

factors that appear to underlie self-monitoring (Extraversion

and low Honesty-Humility), the self-monitoring construct is

likely more than just a combination of these two personality

variables. For instance, we conducted post hoc regressionanalyses relating the HEXACO personality variables as a

set to the overall Self-Monitoring Scale. The results indicate

that, as a whole, the HEXACO model of personality does not

fully account for the variance in self-monitoring (for Study 1,

the average R between the six HEXACO factors and self-

monitoring is .52). Thus, although self-monitoring cannot

be completely understood within the HEXACO framework,

the HEXACO model does provide an avenue for understand-

ing the dishonest side of this important construct.

Conclusion

In sum, the present research illustrates that the self-monitoring

construct has both high Extraversion and low Honesty-

Humility aspects. An exploration of the low Honesty-Humility

side provided valuable insight into previously unexamined,

negative consequences of self-monitoring. It is our hope that this

research will encourage future work on the implications of the

dishonest side of self-monitoring across different domains of

social life.

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C o p y r i g h t o f E u r o p e a n J o u r n a l o f P e r s o n a l i t y i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f J o h n W i l e y & S o n s , I n c . a n d

i t s c o n t e n t m a y n o t b e c o p i e d o r e m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e

c o p y r i g h t h o l d e r ' s e x p r e s s w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a i l

a r t i c l e s f o r i n d i v i d u a l u s e .

An Exploration of the Dishonest Side of Self-Monitoring Links to Moral disengagement

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