Motivated Dissimilarity Construal and Self-Serving Behavior: How We

Distance Ourselves from Those We Harm

Laura J. Noval*

Imperial College Business School

South Kensington Campus

London SW7 2AZ

United Kingdom

Phone: +44-(0)20-7589-5111

l.noval@imperial.ac.uk

Andrew Molinsky

Brandeis University International Business School

415 South Street, MS 032

MA 02454 USA

Phone: +1-781-736-2255

molinsky@brandeis.edu

and

Günter K. Stahl

Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna)

Welthandelsplatz 1, Building D1

A-1020 Vienna

Austria

Phone: +43-1-31336-4434

guenter.stahl@wu.ac.at

*Corresponding Author

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Motivated Dissimilarity Construal and Self-Serving Behavior: How We Distance

Ourselves from Those We Harm

ABSTRACT

It is well established that people are more likely to act in a self-serving manner towards those

dissimilar to themselves. Less well understood is how people actively shape perceptions of

dissimilarity towards victims in order to minimize their own discomfort. In this paper, we

introduce the concept of Motivated Dissimilarity Construal (MDC) – the act of purposely and

proactively distancing oneself psychologically from the victim of one’s own self-serving

behavior. In doing so, we challenge the notion that potential victims of self-serving acts are

perceived objectively and independently of a decision maker’s motivation, as traditional

rationalist models of decision making might suggest. Across three experiments, we

demonstrate how, why and when MDC is likely to occur, and discuss implications of these

findings for theory and research on behavioral ethics and interpersonal similarity.

Keywords: anticipated discomfort; behavioral ethics; interpersonal (dis)similarity; motivated

reasoning; moral disengagement; psychological distance; self-serving behavior.

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INTRODUCTION

It has long been known that people are more likely to behave self-servingly when the

“victims” of their actions are psychologically distant from them. The prevailing research

tradition has followed an “if-then” logic: if someone is of a different race, ethnicity, class or

national culture, then it is less distressing to cause harm – directly or indirectly – to that

person because they are more dissimilar (and thus psychologically more distant) to the self

(e.g., Barnett, 2001; Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Carlson, Kacmar &

Wadsworth, 2002; Ghorbani, Liao, Cayköylü, & Chand, 2013; Hornstein, 1976; Houston,

1990; Jones, 1991; Krebs, 1975; Liviatan, Trope & Liberman, 2008; Mathur, Harada, Lipke &

Chiao, 2010; Mencl & May, 2009; Moore & Gino, 2013; Stürmer, Snyder & Kropp, 2006;

Watley & May, 2004). Though the results of this work have convincingly demonstrated a

contingent relationship between psychological distance and a minimized level of distress

about harming others, less clear is the role of the actor him or herself in contributing to this

contingent effect. Based on motivated reasoning, we depart from the assumption that

dissimilarity perceptions are based only on objective target characteristics and explore

whether (dis)similarity can also be construed to justify self-serving behavior.

In this paper, we demonstrate that decision makers who seek to profit from the rewards

of a self-serving distribution of resources, but anticipate feelings of discomfort (e.g.,

dissonance and/or guilt) about doing so, can engage in what we call “Motivated Dissimilarity

Construal” (MDC). This means that decision makers can proactively distance themselves

psychologically from the victims of their self-serving behavior by construing that victim as

dissimilar to themselves. We argue that, by doing so, decision makers can reduce their own

discomfort and make it easier, and more likely, to engage in the self-serving behavior. This

finding thus challenges the notion that potential victims of self-serving acts are perceived

objectively and independently of a decision maker’s motivation, as traditional rationalist

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models of decision-making might suggest (e.g., Barnett, 2001; Carlson et al., 2002; Jones,

1991; Mencl & May, 2009; Watley & May, 2004). In line with the sense-making intuitionist

model of ethical behavior (Sonenshein, 2007), our studies demonstrate that the motivation of

the perpetrator plays a central role in how victims are perceived, and that these motivated

perceptions have a key influence on the decision to engage in self-serving and harmful

behavior. In this vein, we integrate literature from behavioral ethics and interpersonal

(dis)similarity indicating that target characteristics influence self-serving decisions (e.g.,

Ghorbani et al., 2013; Mencl & May, 2009; Kish-Gephart, Harrison, & Treviño, 2010) with

literature on motivated reasoning, which highlights the malleability of our perceptions of the

world (Kunda, 1990). Importantly, our findings indicate that merely reducing psychological

distance towards others (e.g., Brewer, 1979; Ghorbani et al., 2013; Kish-Gephart et al., 2010;

Kramer & Brewer, 1984; Levine, Prosser, Evans & Reicher, 2005; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008;

Watley & May, 2004) will have limited impact on behavior unless motivational factors, such

as the financial incentives of the decision maker, are also considered.

Interpersonal (Dis)similarity and Self-Serving Behavior

The idea that people show more concern toward those with a higher degree of social

kinship has existed for a long time in social sciences (Allport, 1954; Davis, 1994; Krebs,

1975; Sahlins, 1972; Stotland, 1969), characterized by various terms such as the “circle of

inclusion” (Allport, 1954) and the “circle of moral regard” (Opotow, 1990; Reed & Aquino,

2003). The more we can see ourselves in the other, the more the other's welfare is of

relevance to us (Batson, Lishner, Cook & Sawyer, 2005; Cialdini, Brown, Luce, & Neuberg,

1997; Hornstein, 1976; Maner et al., 2002; Stürmer et al., 2006). Moreover, the tendency to

feel a stronger moral obligation towards those psychologically close to oneself is shared

across cultures (Sahlins, 1972). Supporting the universality of this phenomenon, scholars in

the fields of social neuroscience and social and evolutionary psychology have demonstrated

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that empathy (i.e., a cognitive and affective concern for others’ welfare; Batson et al., 1981) is

automatically and more often aroused in the presence of similar targets, in both primate and

human populations of different ages (e.g., Batson et al., 1995; Davis, 1994; Dovidio, 1984;

Hoffman, 1982; Houston, 1990; Krebs, 1975; Mathur et al., 2010; Preston & deWaal, 2002;

Sagi & Hoffman, 1976; Sole, Marton, & Hornstein, 1975). Moreover, in line with these

effects, and given that empathy is correlated with the experience of guilt (Baumeister,

Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994; Tangney, 1991; Hoffman, 1982; Zahn-Waxler & Kochanska,

1990), perceptions of similarity tend to also increase people’s guilt about harming similar

others (Baumeister et al., 1994; Ghorbani et al., 2013; Hoffman, 1982).

On the other hand, “as the commonality between two people approaches zero, the

possibility of guilt should also approach zero” (Baumeister et al., 1994). Research in

behavioral ethics is in line with this view and has long suggested and shown that people are

more likely to behave unethically and self-servingly when the victims of such behavior are

psychologically distant to them (e.g., Barnett, 2001; Jones, 1991; Gino, Shu, & Bazerman,

2010; Ghorbani et al., 2013; Kish-Gephart et al., 2010; Mencl & May, 2009; Watley & May,

2004; Yam & Reynolds, 2016). Social psychologists have also provided ample evidence that

people are more likely to harm (and less likely to help) those dissimilar to themselves (e.g.,

Batson et al., 1981; Burnstein, Crandall, & Kitayama, 1994; Hornstein, 1972, 1976; Opotow,

1990; Park & Schaller, 2005; Stürmer et al., 2006).

One explanation for such effects is provided by Construal Level Theory (CLT), which

proposes that psychologically distant targets generate higher-level construals and abstract

mental representations (Trope & Liberman, 2010). Moreover, consistent with CLT,

researchers have found that that the greater the dissimilarity experienced towards a target, the

more abstract and simpler the representation of that target becomes (Preston & de Waal, 2002;

Liviatan, et al., 2008). Also in line with CLT, scholars find that when victims of a harmful act

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are perceived to be psychologically distant to a decision-maker, the consequences for those

victims become less vivid (Small & Loewenstein, 2003), and it is thus less likely that the

harm caused to that victim will generate feelings of discomfort in the decision-maker (e.g.,

Ghorbani et al., 2013; Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee, & Welch, 2001; Loewenstein, Small, &

Strnad, 2006; Yam & Reynolds, 2016).

A large body of research, therefore, has convincingly demonstrated that psychological

distance, and corresponding perceptions of dissimilarity (Liviatan et al., 2008), impact

feelings and behavior towards others. However, this discussion misses the key role that the

motivation of the decision maker might play in generating this psychological distance.

Consequently, in our studies, we focus specifically on the motivation of the decision maker

that arises from the combination of (financial) incentives1 to behave self-servingly, as well as

the anticipated discomfort the decision maker experiences in anticipation of executing a given

behavior.

Anticipated Feelings of Discomfort about Self-Serving Behavior

Self-serving or selfish behavior is behavior that results in benefits for the self and

harm to others (Dubois, Rucker & Galinksy, 2015). For this reason, when decision makers

face a potential self-serving decision, they experience an internal conflict between their desire

to benefit from the rewards of the self-serving act and their desire to feel like a good and fair

person who does not harm others (Mazar, Amir & Ariely, 2008; Charness & Gneezy, 2008).

In order to engage in the self-serving act while minimizing their discomfort about it, people

can reshape the meaning of their behavior through motivated reasoning (Festinger, 1957;

Kunda, 1990; Shalvi, Gino, Barkan, & Ayal, 2015; Wicklund & Brehm, 1976). For example,

decision makers may convince themselves that they have outperformed and therefore deserve

more resources than someone else when tempted to keep resources at the expense of another 1 We use the term incentives throughout this paper to refer specifically to financial incentives to engage in self-serving behavior.

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person (Noval & Hernadez, 2017). We argue that, in a similar manner, people can employ

motivated cognitive processes to convince themselves that those harmed by their behavior are

dissimilar to themselves, thereby reducing the discomfort they anticipate feeling about the

behavior.

Motivated reasoning has often been studied in the reduction of uncomfortable internal

states that appear after people have engaged in a self-serving or unethical transgression (e.g.,

Ayal & Gino, 2011; Barkan, Ayal, Gino, & Ariely, 2012; Chatzidakis, Hibbert, Mittusis, &

Smith, 2004; Shalvi, Dana, Handgraaf, & De Dreu, 2011; Shu, Gino, & Bazerman, 2012), but

it can be also employed before the behavior takes place, that is to say, when people anticipate

feelings of discomfort about a potential behavior that they are about to engage in (Shalvi et

al., 2015). When motivated reasoning takes place due to anticipated feelings of discomfort, it

becomes a relevant force in determining whether the transgression is actually committed

(Shalvi et al., 2015). We thus focus on how these anticipated feelings increase decision

makers’ motivation to engage in MDC, and how, in turn, such motivated construal of

dissimilarity increases self-serving acts.

It is important to clarify that by anticipated discomfort, we refer to feelings of both

dissonance and guilt, both of which can occur in these contexts (e.g., Barkan et al., 2012;

Cohen, Panter, & Duran, 2012; Shalvi et al., 2015; Shu et al., 2012; Yam & Reynolds, 2016).

Dissonance and guilt have sometimes been used interchangeably and are considered to be

strongly related to each other, particularly in interpersonal contexts where harm is involved

(Baumeister et al., 1994; Breslavs, 2013; Chatzidakis et al., 2004; Ghingold, 1981; Jones,

Kugler, & Adams, 1995; O’Keefe, 2000; Shalvi et al., 2015; Stice, 1992). Some scholars draw

a subtle distinction, however, arguing that guilt is the more intense aspect or affective

consequence in the experience of dissonance (Breslavs, 2013; Boothroyd, 1986; Ding et al.,

2016; Ghingold, 1981; Gosling, Denizeau, & Oberlé, 2006; O’Keefe, 2000; Yousaf & Gobet,

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2013)2. Important for our research is that both dissonance and guilt about a given behavior

have the following characteristics: they arise from a discrepancy between one’s behavior and

one’s self-image and values (Breslavs, 2013); they involve negative arousal that people are

motivated to avoid (Ghingold, 1981; Stice, 1992); they require that a person feels personally

responsible about the behavior (Carlsmith & Gross, 1969, Gosling et al., 2006, Stice, 1992,

etc.); and they can be relieved by methods that include memory distortion processes (Scheier

& Carver, 1980; Stice, 1992). Because of their common characteristics, which are relevant for

our ensuing arguments, we therefore refer to the experience of dissonance and guilt in this

paper as anticipated “discomfort” (Folger & Skarlicki, 1998).

Motivated Dissimilarity Construal and Self-Serving Behavior

Based on theories of motivated reasoning (Kunda, 1990), we argue that construal of

dissimilarity about others will be influenced by the motivation of the decision maker to

perceive others as dissimilar to the self. In the context of self-serving behavior, this

motivation will be determined by the degree of (financial) incentives the decision maker has

to gain from behaving self-servingly and the feelings of discomfort that the decision maker

anticipates feeling from that behavior. Because people are generally motivated to avoid

unpleasant and uncomfortable psychological states (e.g., Baumeister, Vohs, Dewall, & Zhang,

2007; Stice, 1992), those who anticipate discomfort should be particularly motivated to

engage in a process that reduces or prevents such negative feelings from arising. In contrast,

individuals who experience little to no discomfort about self-serving behavior, and can

therefore freely engage in the self-serving act will have little or no reason to engage in MDC.

Thus,

2 Other scholars also discuss the possibility that “dissonance is the actual motivating psychological state and guilt

is a folk-psychological term applied to certain species of dissonance” (O’Keefe, 2000, p. 87). 8

H1. Incentives for self-serving behavior lead decision-makers to increase dissimilarity

construal towards the victims of that behavior, such that the more rewards decision

makers can gain from the self-serving act, the more dissimilar they construe the victims

of that act to be.

H2. Anticipated discomfort about self-serving behavior moderates the relationship

between incentives and dissimilarity construal, such that the more discomfort decision

makers anticipate experiencing, the more likely they are to increase dissimilarity

construal towards the victims.

As this theorizing implies, decision makers are more prone to engage in MDC when

they anticipate discomfort about their self-serving behavior precisely because MDC would

help them avoid or minimize the actual experience of that discomfort if they were to engage

in the self-serving act. This is in line with the notion that motivated reasoning serves a

discomfort reduction process (Kunda, 1990) and that people generally experience less

discomfort when harming psychologically distant and dissimilar victims, as reviewed in the

introduction. Consequently, if MDC makes decision makers more comfortable (i.e., reduces

discomfort) about self-serving behavior, MDC should also increase their tendency to engage

in the self-serving act. Thus,

H3: Decision makers who come to perceive the victims as more dissimilar to themselves

(i.e., who increase dissimilarity construal) are more likely to behave self-servingly.

Finally, it is important to clarify that decision makers are unlikely to engage in MDC

arbitrarily, that is, irrespective of their pre-existing attitudes. The literature on motivated

reasoning has long demonstrated that espoused attitudes about a situation that exist prior to

the introduction of a motivational factor (e.g., incentives) limit the extent to which people are

able to use motivated reasoning to reframe that situation (Kunda, 1990). In the context of our

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research, we consider that only positive attitudes about a target would constrain people’s

ability to engage in MDC, given that a negative attitude would facilitate rather than overturn

dissimilarity construal (Rosenbaum, 1986; Reis, 2007). Thus, if decision makers have an a

established positive attitude about a target before being presented with incentives to behave

self-servingly at that target’s expense, they will be constrained in their ability to perceive that

person as dissimilar to the self (Byrne, 1961, 1971; Cooper, Zanna, & Goethals, 1974; Reis,

2007), regardless of incentives to behave self-servingly. Thus,

H4. Pre-existing positive attitudes towards the target reduce the likelihood that decision

makers will increase dissimilarity construal towards the victims of a self-serving act.

To sum up, our research builds upon and expands existing literature in the following

ways: First, we seek to demonstrate that not only do perceptions of dissimilarity prompt self-

serving behavior, as shown in previous research, but that incentives to engage in self-serving

behavior also prompt people to construe others as more dissimilar to the self. Second, our

research aims to show how MDC arises from the combination of incentives to behave self-

servingly in conjunction with anticipated discomfort about that behavior, and that MDC is,

however, constrained by pre-existing positive attitudes about the target. Finally, our research

also aims to show how this motivated form of dissimilarity construal is an important force in

determining people’s self-serving choices. Figure 1 provides a summary of our hypotheses.

Overview of Empirical Studies

We test our hypotheses with three experimental studies. In Studies 1 and 2, we explore

whether increasing rewards to be gained from self-serving behavior leads people to perceive

others as more dissimilar to the self (engage in MDC), particularly when they anticipate

discomfort about such behavior (H1 and H2). In Study 2, we also explore the boundaries of

MDC, demonstrating that MDC is less likely when decision-makers consider somebody they

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already have a positive attitude towards (H4). In Study 3, we examine whether people engage

in MDC in order to reduce their discomfort, using a moderation-as-process design (Spencer,

Zanna & Fong, 2005). In Studies 1 to 3, we explore whether MDC increases the tendency of

decision makers to engage in self-serving behavior (H3).

STUDY 1

In Study 1, we addressed our hypotheses with a design adapted from the “dictator

game” (Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1986), in which participants allocate resources (lottery

tickets) between themselves and others. This type of interpersonal allocation exercise has

frequently been used to explore self-serving behavior (e.g., Diekmann, Samuels, Ross &

Bazerman, 1997; Dubois et al., 2015; Tan & Forgas, 2010). In the present study, participants

received information about the target with whom they were supposed to share the lottery

tickets, and were asked to assess how similar they felt to that person. We manipulated the

magnitude of incentives in order to test H1: that is, we expected that a higher level of

incentives would increase participants’ motivation to engage in dissimilarity construal based

on the logic articulated previously. Additionally, we measured whether anticipated discomfort

about engaging in this form of self-serving behavior would exacerbate MDC (H2) and

whether engaging in MDC would, in turn, increase the likelihood self-serving behavior (H3).

Method

Participants and Design. Participants consisted of 135 students of business and/or

economics at a large European university (52% women, Mage = 24.21, SD = 4.72, Mwork_experience

= 2.78, SD = 3.09).

Procedure. As a cover story and in order to avoid raising suspicions about the

intentions of the study, participants first completed a series of questionnaires related to their

personality characteristics and individual preferences. They also had the opportunity to write

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something unique about themselves in a blank space. After completing this initial task,

participants were told they would enter a lottery game together with another participant who

had taken part in a similar study the preceding week, and to whom they would remain

anonymous. Participants were told there were seven tickets to be shared between themselves

and the other participant (the target, whom we refer to as Participant B). Participants were told

they had been randomly coupled with the other participant and assigned to a role. For the

purpose of this study, all participants were given the role of “allocators” and it was explained

that this role meant they would be responsible for decisions on how the tickets should be

distributed. We highlighted the notion that this role had been randomly assigned to them so

that they would not feel entitled to a larger share of the tickets due to performance claims

(e.g., Diekmann et al., 1997; Noval & Hernandez, 2017).

Incentives condition. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: the

opportunity to participate in a lottery for either €10 (low-incentive condition) or €200 (high-

incentive condition). In line with H1, we expected that the higher the incentive, the more

likely dissimilarity construal would occur, which would be evidence of MDC (i.e.,

dissimilarity construal driven by the motivation to behave self-servingly).

Anticipated discomfort about self-serving behavior. After participants were informed

about their role in the lottery and the incentives to be gained, they were asked to anticipate

how they would feel after making this decision. In this first study, we adopted the Discomfort

Index of a well-established dissonance scale, which is intended to capture global

psychological discomfort and parallels earlier conceptualizations of dissonance (Gosling et

al., 2006). Specifically, we asked participants to assess how uncomfortable, bothered, and

uneasy they anticipated feeling about their allocation decision, without any mention of what

this decision would be (α = 0.87). Participants assessed these feelings on a scale from 1 (does

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not apply at all) to 7 (applies very much). Test items were embedded within other filler items

in order to reduce demand effects.

Target information. Participants subsequently received a description of Participant B

(see Appendix A). We purposefully constructed the description of Participant B so that he

would seem typical of, and similar to our student participant population. In doing so, we felt it

would increase the odds that dissimilarity construals would be driven by incentives in the

experiment, as opposed to the way that we crafted the description of the target.

Construal of (dis)similarity. After reading the information about Participant B,

participants were asked a series of questions to assess how similar to themselves they

construed the target to be. These questions were adopted from previous research (Toi &

Batson, 1982; Stürmer et al., 2006) and included items related to similarity (detailed in

Appendix B) assessed on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all to 7 = very much). These items were

embedded within other filler items. As we expected, the items used to assess perceived

similarity loaded into one factor, but the filler items did not. We thus combined the four items

and reverse-coded them in order to form our measure of dissimilarity construal (α = .88).

Self-serving behavior. Participants were asked to make a decision and specify the

lottery tickets they had decided to allocate to Participant B. We subtracted this amount from

the total number of tickets available (seven) to form our measure of self-serving behavior, that

is, the number of tickets they kept for themselves at the expense of Participant B. We also

counterbalanced the order between the measures of dissimilarity construal and self-serving

behavior so as to reduce demand effects (Nichols & Maner, 2008).

Control variables. At the end of the study, participants completed demographic

information and were debriefed.

Results

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Table 1 contains the descriptive statistics for Study 1.3

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Insert Table 1 about here

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Motivated dissimilarity construal. We conducted an analysis of variance (ANOVA),

entering the experimental condition (magnitude of incentives) as the independent variable and

dissimilarity construal as the dependent variable. There was a significant effect of incentives

on dissimilarity construal, F(1,126) = 5.21, p = .024, ηp2 = .039. Participants perceived the

target as significantly more dissimilar to themselves when the incentives to be gained from

self-serving behavior were high as opposed to low. This finding provides evidence of

motivated dissimilarity construal (MDC) and supports H1.

Anticipated discomfort about self-serving behavior. As Table 1 shows, there was

no effect of the experimental condition on participants’ anticipated discomfort about the self-

serving act, F(1,127) = .891, p = .347, ηp2 = .007. We next measured whether anticipated

discomfort moderated the effect of incentives on MDC by using the PROCESS command

(Hayes, 2013). PROCESS implements bootstrapping procedures, whose results are robust

even when assumptions needed for other statistical methods are violated (Hayes, 2013; Field,

2013). We conducted a bootstrapping procedure with 5000 resamples, which means that 5000

non-repeated random samples were drawn from the original sample, and parameters of

interest were calculated for each of these in order to address our hypotheses (Field, 2013).

The results of this analysis yielded that the interaction between incentives and anticipated

discomfort was significant (t = 2.38, p = .020).

3 In all of the studies of this paper, 3 to 5 participants expressed doubts about the existence of Participant B. We conducted analysis with and without these participants and kept them in the final report of each study since their inclusion did not affect our overall findings.

14

As illustrated in Figure 2, the conditional analysis revealed that incentives generated

MDC at high, 95% CI [.36, 1.49], but not at low, 95% CI [-.60, .49], and medium, 95% CI

[-.08, .70], levels of anticipated discomfort. This result supports H2, providing evidence that

incentives generate MDC the more participants anticipated discomfort about behaving self-

servingly.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Insert Figure 2 about here

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Self-serving behavior. We next tested whether MDC increased participants’ tendency

to engage in self-serving behavior. We conducted a bootstrapping procedure with 5000

resamples to test the moderated mediation model depicted in Figure 1: we entered incentives

as the independent variable, anticipated discomfort as the moderator, dissimilarity construal as

the mediator, and self-serving behavior as the dependent variable (with demographic variables

as covariates). The moderated mediation model was significant, index = 0.114, 95% CI

[.02, .25]. The conditional analysis revealed that the indirect effect of incentives on self-

serving behavior mediated by MDC was significant at high, 95% CI [.10, 0.55], but not at

low, 95% CI [-.23, .16], and medium, 95% CI [-.04, .25], levels of anticipated discomfort.

These results provide support for our main hypotheses: incentives generate MDC (H1) the

more discomfort people anticipate about self-serving behavior (H2), and that MDC, in turn,

increases self-serving behavior (H3).

Order effects. We included the effect of “order” as an additional condition to test

whether the order in which the variables were presented played a role in our hypotheses

(0=mediator before the DV; 1=mediator after the DV). The order effect on self-serving

behavior was not significant, F(1,126) = .053, p = .818, ηp2 < .001, such that participants

behaved as self-servingly when dissimilarity assessments were made before the ticket

15

allocation (M = 4.84, SD = 1.33) as well as when they were made after the ticket allocation

(M = 4.81, SD = 1.23). The interaction between order and incentives on self-serving behavior

was also not significant, F(1,126) = .018, p = .894, ηp2 < .0014. Additionally, there were no

order effects on dissimilarity construal, F(1,126) = .029, p = .866, ηp2 < .001, such that

dissimilarity assessments were not significantly different whether they were made before (M

= 3.56, SD = 1.28) or after the ticket allocation (M = 3.55, SD = 1.23). The interaction effects

between order and incentives was also not significant, F(1,126) = .196, p = .659.

Control variables. There was no significant effect of any of the demographic

variables on dissimilarity construal or on self-serving behavior. There was an effect of gender

on anticipated discomfort, such that female participants anticipated more discomfort than

male participants, F(1,126) = 4.42, p = .037, ηp2 = .034. This effect did not interact with the

independent variable (incentives), F(1,126) = .168, p = .683, ηp2 = .001.

Discussion

In sum, the results of Study 1 provided initial evidence of the MDC phenomenon.

Specifically, the stronger the incentives for self-serving behavior were and the more

discomfort participants anticipated about that behavior, the more they construed the victims of

the behavior as dissimilar to themselves (H1 and H2). Additionally, and in support of H3, we

also found that MDC increased participants’ tendency to behave in a self-serving manner,

which suggests MDC indeed helped participants to feel more comfortable about making a

self-serving allocation. We note a few limitations of Study 1, which we attempt to address in

our following study.

First, Study 1 employed a measure of anticipated discomfort that best resembles the

experience of dissonance (Festinger, 1957; Elliot & Devine, 1994; Gosling et al., 2006) but

4 The small effect size of the non-significant results indicates that a significant result would be unlikely even

with a larger sample size (O’Keefe, 2007).16

excludes guilt, which is often considered to be a more intense and affective form of

dissonance (Breslavs, 2013; Ding et al., 2016; Ghingold, 1981). We also asked participants to

assess their discomfort about making a decision about the tickets rather than making a self-

serving decision specifically. We had decided to use this more subtle measure of discomfort

in order to avoid raising suspicions about the intentions of the study and thereby contaminate

our dependent variable of self-serving behavior. In order to expand our results, however, we

address anticipated discomfort using a more specific measure in Study 2, that is to say, by

assessing the affective component of discomfort (i.e., guilt) about specific self-serving

allocations.

Second, participants in Study 1 assessed a target about whom they only learned

information during the experiment, which means these results may be limited to contexts with

no pre-existing attitudes about a target. Even though previous research has demonstrated that

first impressions tend to carry a disproportionate weight on overall assessments of another

person (e.g., Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992; Nickerson, 1998; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977;

Thorndike, 1920), we considered it would be important to determine whether MDC is also

possible when people consider targets they know more about, and whether MDC is instead

constrained by pre-existing attitudes (H4) in the following study.

STUDY 2

In order to expand our previous results and address H4, we conducted a second study

in which we examined whether established positive attitudes towards the target would reduce

the likelihood that decision makers engage in MDC even if they were incentivized to behave

self-servingly. Specifically, we asked participants to assess either an acquaintance towards

whom they had no ingrained attitudes, or a close friend (i.e., somebody they have a strong

positive attitude towards). In line with H4, we expected that MDC would only be constrained

when considering a target towards whom decision makers had established positive attitudes, 17

such as a friend (Burleson, 1994; Tang, Morewedge, Larrick, & Klein, 2017), but not when

considering an acquaintance they neither liked nor disliked5.

Participants. Participants were 190 students of business and/or economics from a

large European university (63% women, 26% graduate students, Mage = 22.98, SD = 3.60).

Procedure. Participants were assigned to one condition of a 2 X (target: friend,

acquaintance) X 2 (incentive: low, high) experimental design. In order to test whether pre-

existing attitudes about a target influence the extent to which people engage in MDC, we

adopted a design based on previous research in which participants were asked to imagine a

friend or an acquaintance before engaging in a decision-making task (Tang et al., 2017). We

chose this “Experimental Vignette Method” (EVM; Aguinis & Bradley, 2014) for several

reasons. First, we anticipated significant logistical challenges in having participants recruit

and motivate acquaintances that they neither liked nor disliked (i.e., “felt neutral towards”) to

come to the lab. Moreover, even if participants succeeded in bringing someone towards whom

they had no established attitudes, we felt it was quite possible that in the course of interacting

with that person before our study, those previously neutral feelings could change. Thus, by

using a vignette method and asking participants to choose a target that reflected precisely

those pre-existing attitudes that we were interested in analyzing (ingrained positive vs.

neutral), we felt we could eliminate potential noise and confounds and focus more precisely

on manipulating our variable of interest.

In order to increase the immersion of participants in the task (Aguinis & Bradley,

2014), we asked participants to think of someone they either had an ingrained positive attitude

towards based on a close friendship or someone they had no particular established attitudes

5 We excluded negative attitudes from the design given that, as explained in the introduction, when a person has

a negative attitude towards a target he or she is likely to perceive that target as dissimilar to the self (Rosenbaum,

1986; Reis, 2007) regardless of incentives or any other motivations, rendering their role in MDC less relevant.18

(i.e. felt neutral) towards based on a superficial acquaintance. Moreover, we asked

participants to first select a person and think about this person for a few seconds. We also

asked them to keep this person in mind for the remainder of the study (by writing that

person’s name, initial, or a code so as to keep their identity anonymous).

After selecting this person, participants were presented with the incentives for self-

serving behavior. Participants were asked to imagine they were playing a game in the research

lab together with that person (i.e. the target: positive vs. neutral pre-existing attitudes) for an

allocation decision. Participants were then told they would be sitting at separate computers

and that neither of them could see what the other was doing. Participants were told that they

had been randomly assigned to the role of “allocator” and that due to this role, they needed to

decide how to distribute seven lottery tickets between themselves and the target in order to

compete for a prize of €10 (those assigned to the low-incentive condition) or for €1000 (those

assigned to the high-incentive condition). Due to the hypothetical nature of the scenario, we

considered that the high incentive condition would be better represented by a more salient

amount (compared to the amount offered in Study 1) that would call participants’ attention

and likely generate enough temptation for self-serving behavior. Large rewards have been

found to be particularly suitable for hypothetical decision-making tasks and to be equivalent

to results obtained with smaller rewards in real decision-making tasks (Locey, Jones &

Rachlin, 2011).

Anticipated discomfort about self-serving behavior. As previously described, Study

2 was designed to focus on the affective component of discomfort about self-serving

behavior. We thus asked participants to anticipate the guilt they would experience if they were

to make different allocation choices: keeping all tickets for the self, keeping 6-, keeping 5-,

keeping 4-, keeping 3-, keeping 2-, and keeping 1- ticket, respectively, with items such as:

how guilty would you feel if you kept all the tickets for yourself, how guilty would you feel if

19

you kept six tickets for yourself, etc., which participants responded to on a 1 (not at all guilty)

to 7 (very guilty) scale (Yam & Reynolds, 2016). The four items measuring anticipated

discomfort/guilt about all possible self-serving allocations (keeping 7, 6, 5, and 4 tickets,

respectively) loaded into one factor in a principal-axis factor analysis with varimax rotation,

and we thus combined these items to constitute this specific measure of anticipated discomfort

about the self-serving behavior for Study 2 (α = .88).

Construal of dissimilarity. Participants were then asked to think about Participant B

one more time and to respond to the same similarity-oriented questions as in Study 1

(Appendix B). We reversed those items to obtain our measure of dissimilarity construal (α

= .89).

Self-serving behavioral intention. Finally, we asked participants to imagine and report

as accurately as possible how many tickets they would keep for themselves. Given that

intention is found to be strongly related to actual behavior (Albarracín, Johnson, Fishbein, &

Muellerleile, 2001; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), we took this measure as an indication of the

behavior participants would display in this situation. Additionally, and as we had done in

Study 1, we counterbalanced the order in which participants made similarity assessments and

the allocation decision to reduce demand effects.

Results

Table 2 contains the descriptive statistics of Study 2.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Insert Table 2 about here

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Motivated dissimilarity construal. We submitted our measure of dissimilarity

construal to a two-way ANOVA, entering the target and incentive conditions as independent

20

variables. There was an effect of both the incentive and target conditions on dissimilarity

construal, as well as a significant interaction. There was a main effect of “target” on

dissimilarity construal, F(1,181) =275.54, p <.001, ηp2 = .604, such that participants perceived

friends as significantly more similar to themselves than acquaintances. The main effect of

“incentive” was also significant, F(1, 181) = 6.26, p = .013, ηp2 = .033, such that participants

perceived the target as less similar to the self in the presence of high- as opposed to low-

incentives, in line with our MDC theorizing. There was also a significant interaction between

the incentive and target condition s F(1,181) = 10.75, p = .001, ηp2 = .056, such that

dissimilarity construal increased for participants in the high-incentive condition only when

they were imagining an acquaintance but not when they were imagining a friend. As shown in

Table 2 and Figure 3, when people considered an acquaintance, they perceived the latter as

more dissimilar in the high- as opposed to the low-incentive condition, F(1,181) = 16.55, p

< .001, ηp2 = .084. This result suggests that participants were able to engage in MDC when

they considered a target they were already acquainted with but had no strong attitudes

towards. Conversely, when participants considered a friend, they perceived the same degree

of dissimilarity regardless of the magnitude of the incentives, F(1, 181) = .305, p = .582.

These results provide support for H4 by demonstrating that MDC is constrained by ingrained

positive pre-existing attitudes about the target, such that people are less likely to engage in

MDC towards someone they feel strongly positive about before the motivation to re-shape

perceptions about the target arises. In addition, these results demonstrate that MDC is not only

limited to first impressions, as Study 1 had shown, but also possible towards targets people

are acquainted with as long as no strong attitudes towards that person have been yet formed.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Insert Figure 3 about here

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

21

Self-serving behavioral intention. A two-way ANOVA revealed a main effect of both

the incentive and target conditions on self-serving behavioral intention, as well as a

significant interaction. As illustrated in Table 2, the effect of incentives on self-serving

intention was significant, F(1,181) = 5.62, p = .019, ηp2 = .030, such that participants

expressed more intention to behave self-servingly when incentives were high as opposed to

low. The effect of type of target was also significant, F(1,181) = 73.79, p <.001, ηp2 = .290,

such that participants expressed less intention to behave self-servingly at the expense of a

friend as opposed to an acquaintance. The interaction between the incentive and target

conditions was also significant, F(1,181) = 5.18, p = .024, ηp2 = .028, such that high incentives

increased self-serving intentions when participants considered an acquaintance, F(1,181) =

10.70, p = .001, ηp2 = .056, but not when they considered a friend, F(1,181) = .004, p = .947.

Anticipated discomfort about self-serving behavior. We also conducted a two-way

ANOVA to test whether our independent variables (incentives and target) had an effect on

anticipated discomfort about self-serving behavior. Similar to the findings obtained in Study

1, these results revealed that there was no significant effect of incentives on anticipated

discomfort, t = -.378, p = .705. As illustrated in Table 2, there was a significant effect of

target on anticipated discomfort, t = -2.09, p = .037, such that participants anticipated more

discomfort when they considered a friend as opposed to an acquaintance.

Moderated mediation model. We first conducted a bootstrapping procedure with 5000

resamples to test the complete moderated mediation model (model 9 in PROCESS; Hayes,

2013) illustrated in Figure 1. We entered the incentive condition as the independent variable,

dissimilarity construal as the mediator, self-serving intention as the dependent variable, type

of target as the first moderator and anticipated discomfort as the second moderator (as well as

demographic variables as controls). The moderated mediation analysis considering target as

the moderator was significant, index = -.464, 95% CI [-.751, -.207], which provides support

22

for H4. The second moderated mediation analysis yielded by this model (9 in PROCESS),

considering anticipated discomfort as the moderator was also significant, index = .089, 95%

CI [.011, .177], which provides support for H2.

The direct effect of incentives on self-serving behavior was not significant, t = 1.71, p

= .099. As Table 3 illustrates, the indirect effect of incentives on self-serving behavior

mediated by dissimilarity construal was only significant when participants considered an

acquaintance and anticipated medium to high levels of discomfort about behaving self-

servingly. Instead, this indirect effect of incentives was not significant when participants

considered an acquaintance but anticipated discomfort was relatively low. In line with H2,

these results demonstrate that when participants considered an allocation involving an

acquaintance, they engaged in MDC towards the acquaintance the higher the incentives to

behave self-servingly were and the more discomfort they anticipated about a self-serving

allocation, which in turn led them to be express more willingness to behave self-servingly

(H1, H2, and H3).

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Insert Table 3 about here

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

As also depicted in Table 3, when participants considered a friend, the indirect effect of

incentives on self-serving behavior mediated by dissimilarity construal was not significant

regardless of the level of anticipated discomfort. These results suggest that when participants

considered an allocation involving a friend, they did not increase perceptions of dissimilarity

with respect to that friend regardless of the incentives to behave self-servingly. In turn,

participants behaved less self-servingly at the expense of the friend compared to the

acquaintance. Taken together, these results suggest that even though participants had

anticipated more discomfort about harming a friend with self-serving behavior, they were not

23

able to engage in MDC with respect to that friend to feel more comfortable behaving self-

servingly (in line with H4).

Order effects. We conducted a three-way analysis of variance to test whether the order

in which the variables were presented to participants (0=mediator before the DV; 1=mediator

after the DV) played a role in our hypotheses, and whether it interacted with any of the main

IV’s (incentives and target). The three-way interaction of these variables on self-serving

behavior was not significant, F(1,178) = .118, p = .732. The effect of order on self-serving

behavior was not significant, F(1,178) = .238, p = .626, ηp2 = .001, such that participants

behaved as self-servingly when dissimilarity assessments were made before the allocation

decision (M = 4.56, SD = 1.26) as when they were made after the allocation decision (M =

4.67, SD = 1.28). The interaction effects between order and incentives, F(1,178) = .160, p

= .690, and between order and target, F(1,178) = 1.02, p = .315, on self-serving behavior were

also not significant. Similarly, the three-way interaction of these variables on dissimilarity

construal was not significant, F(1,178) = .118, p = .330. There was no order effect on

dissimilarity construal, F(1,178) = .955, p = .305, ηp2 = .006, such that dissimilarity

assessments were analogous when they were made before the allocation decision (M = 3.80,

SD = 1.69) and when they were made after the allocation decision (M = 3.66, SD = 1.64). The

interaction effects between order and incentives, F(1,178) = .212, p = .646, and between order

and target, F(1,178) = .167, p = .787, on dissimilarity construal were also not significant.

Control variables. There were no significant effects of demographic variables on our

dependent variables, except for a significant effect of gender on anticipated feelings of

discomfort, F(1,178) = 7.33, p = .007, ηp2 = .040, such that women anticipated significantly

more discomfort than men. There was also a significant three-way interaction between gender

and both of our independent variables (target and incentive) on anticipated discomfort,

F(1,182) = 3.95, p = .049, ηp2 = .022. A simple effect analysis revealed that female

24

participants (M = 2.68, SD = 1.92) anticipated more discomfort than male participants (M =

4.19, SD = 1.46) when considering self-serving behavior at the expense of an acquaintance in

the low-incentive condition; there was no difference in anticipated discomfort at the expense

of a friend or in the high-incentive condition due to gender. There was additionally a

significant three-way interaction between gender and both of our independent variables (target

and incentive) on self-serving behavioral intention: F(1,178) = 6.27, p = .013, ηp2 = .034.

Consistent with the results obtained for anticipated discomfort, a simple effect analysis

revealed that female participants expressed less self-serving intention (M = 4.52, SD = 1.15)

than male participants (M = 5.50, SD = 1.31) at the expense of an acquaintance in the low-

incentive condition; there was no difference on self-serving intention at the expense of a

friend or in the high-incentive condition due to gender.

Discussion

Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 while also including a more specific and

affective measure of anticipated discomfort, a larger potential reward representing incentives

for self-serving behavior, and a target known to participants prior to the study. In this last

regard, Study 2 demonstrated that MDC was possible when decision makers considered an

allocation involving a target they already knew, but was less likely when they already had an

ingrained positive attitudes towards that target. This finding signals that MDC is not only

limited to first impressions, as measured in Study 1, but can also occur when the target is

already known, as long as the decision-maker has not yet established positive attitudes

towards that person.

This latter finding also confirmed a boundary condition for MDC, in line with the

notion that motivated reasoning can shape, but not completely overturn, ingrained positive

attitudes (Kunda, 1990). Specifically, Study 2 suggested that when people have established a

friendship with someone, they have also formed a rather strong positive opinion about that 25

person, and consequently such opinions – including construal of (dis)similarity – are less

susceptible to motivated processes.

STUDY 3

Study 3 was designed with the intention of addressing two main limitations of the

previous studies of this research. First, we had previously manipulated the magnitude rather

than the presence of incentives, that is to say, we compared dissimilarity construal in the face

of low versus high incentives to behave self-servingly. It should be noted, however, that

participants in the low-rewards condition were still incentivized to behave self-servingly, even

if to a lower degree. To address this potential limitation, we instead asked participants in

Study 3 to assess the target either before or after they knew about the allocation task, that is,

before or after they had any incentives to behave self-servingly or construe the target as

dissimilar. We expected that participants who read information about the target before

knowing about the allocation task would have no reason to engage in MDC because the

incentives to behave self-servingly at the expense of the target would not yet exist.

Conversely, if participants who read the exact same description of the target after knowing

about the potential rewards from self-serving behavior construed the exact same target as

more dissimilar to themselves, we would have evidence that incentives are driving

dissimilarity construal (MDC).

Another aspect that has so far remained unexamined is whether discomfort reduction

is indeed the reason for which MDC takes place. We believe this is the case given that both

our studies demonstrated that participants were more likely to behave self-servingly after

MDC. We did not explicitly measure discomfort reduction in these studies because doing so

would have increased suspicions about our intentions potentially contaminating subsequent

variables, and also in line with most of the literature on motivated reasoning that has inferred

rather than directly measured a discomfort reduction process (Kunda 1990; Shalvi et al., 26

2015). Scholars are increasingly recommending an experimental paradigm – called

moderation-as-process or blockage design (Spencer et al., 2005; Pirlott & MacKinnon, 2017)

– to address psychological processes whose measurement is problematic. For this reason, we

employ this paradigm in Study 3 by including a condition in which discomfort reduction was

rendered unnecessary and testing whether this manipulation cancels out MDC, which would

provide evidence that discomfort reduction is the reason for which people engage in MDC in

the first place.

Method

Participants and Design. Participants were 274 students at a large European university

(54% women; Mage = 22.99, SD = 4.13, Mwork_experience = 2.29, SD = 3.13).

Procedure. Participants first completed a battery of questionnaires as a cover story,

similar to the prior studies. Participants were then randomly assigned to one cell out of three

experimental conditions (assess-target-before-allocation, assess-target-after-allocation, assess-

target-after-allocation-no-discomfort):

Assess target before incentives. It was explained to participants that another participant

of the study (Participant B) had already completed a related questionnaire, and that they were

asked to read a summary describing this person. After reading this description, participants

were asked to assess how similar they felt to the target. Next, participants were told about the

allocation task, assigned to the role of “allocator,” and given eight lottery tickets that they

could split between themselves and the target to compete in a lottery prize of €150. MDC

could thus not take place in this condition because no incentives for self-serving behavior

existed at the time that participants made the similarity assessments.

Assess target after incentives. In this condition, participants were first told about the

allocation task, assigned to the role of “allocator,” and given eight lottery tickets that they

27

could split between themselves and the target to compete in a lottery prize of €150. Only after

receiving the latter information were participants provided with the target’s description, which

contained the exact same information as provided in the previous condition, and they were

asked how similar they felt to this person. Based on our MDC theorizing (H1), we expected

that participants would perceive the target as more dissimilar to themselves in this condition

(compared to the previous one) due to the existence of incentives at the time of making the

similarity assessments.

Assess target after incentives/no discomfort. In this condition, participants also read the

description of the target after knowing about the allocation task, that is, after they had

incentives to perceive the target as dissimilar. They were explicitly told, however, that they

“should keep seven tickets for themselves and allocate one to Participant B”. This design was

meant to block the motivation to reduce discomfort, since the experience of discomfort,

including both dissonance and guilt, is only present when individuals feel personally

responsible for their decision and behavior (e.g., Carlsmith & Gross, 1969; Cooper, 1971;

Cooper & Fazio, 1984; Folger & Skarlicki, 1998; Gosling et al., 2006; Kunda, 1990; O’Keefe,

2000; Tangney et al., 1996; Stice, 1992). Consequently, because discomfort reduction was

rendered unnecessary (i.e., was blocked) by removing the personal responsibility for the self-

serving allocation, and because we posit that discomfort reduction is the reason for engaging

in MDC in the first place, we expected the relationship between incentives and dissimilarity to

be considerably diminished in this condition.

These arguments are derived from moderation-as-process (Spencer et al., 2005) or

blockage manipulation (Pirlott & MacKinnon, 2017) strategies, which suggest that if a

psychological process (e.g., discomfort reduction) is blocked or rendered irrelevant in a given

condition and this blockage makes the relationship between independent and dependent

variables (incentives and MDC) disappear, there is solid evidence that said psychological

28

process is driving that relationship (Pirlott & MacKinnon, 2017; Spencer et al., 2005).

Importantly, this method is considered to be a more effective strategy as opposed to directly

measuring psychological processes, especially when measuring those processes is not only

difficult but can potentially affect the main variable of interest, in this case, self-serving

behavior (Spencer et al., 2005). In addition, prior research has successfully addressed

processes related to discomfort or dissonance using a moderator-as-process design instead of

direct measurement (e.g., Zanna & Cooper, 1974; Cooper et al., 1978; Pittman, 1975).

Dissimilarity construal. We measured perceptions of similarity with the same items as

in Study 1. We reverse-coded these items to form our measure of dissimilarity construal 1 (α

= .88).

Self-serving behavior. Self-serving behavior was again operationalized as the number

of lottery tickets that participants decided to keep for themselves (out of the eight tickets

available).

At the end of the study, participants completed demographic information, were asked to

indicate whether they knew what the intentions of the study were, and received a short

debriefing.

Results

Table 4 summarizes the results of Study 3, taking demographic variables into account.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Insert Table 4 about here

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Motivated dissimilarity construal. We conducted an analysis of variance (ANOVA)

entering the experimental condition as the independent variable and dissimilarity construal as

the dependent variable. There was a significant effect of the experimental condition on

29

dissimilarity construal, F(2,266) = 9.59, p < .001, ηp2 = .067. Bonferroni-adjusted posthoc

tests revealed a significant difference in dissimilarity construal between participants in the

assess-target-before-allocation condition and participants in the assess-target-after-allocation

condition, t = -3.59, p = .001. This result expands the results of the previous studies and

supports H1 by demonstrating that participants construed the same target as more dissimilar to

themselves after they had incentives to perceive the other as dissimilar as opposed to before

they knew about these incentives.

Interestingly, and as we had predicted, there was no significant difference on

dissimilarity construal between participants in the assess-target-before-incentives condition

and the assess-target-after-incentives-no-discomfort condition (t = .240, p = .810), which

indicates that the latter group did not increase perceptions of dissimilarity towards the target.

Also as predicted, among participants who read the target’s description after knowing about

the incentives for self-serving behavior, there was a significant difference between those in

the regular condition (assess-target-after-incentives) and in the condition where the self-

serving decision was prescribed (assess-target-after-incentives-no-discomfort), t = 4.03, p

< .001 . Taken together, these results provide evidence that participants did not engage in

MDC when the self-serving decision was made by someone else, that is to say, when they had

incentives to behave self-servingly but had no reason or need to reduce discomfort about

making a self-serving allocation (e.g., Carlsmith & Gross, 1969; Cooper, 1971; Cooper &

Fazio, 1984; Folger & Skarlicki, 1998; Gosling et al., 2006; Kunda, 1990; O’Keefe, 2000;

Tangney et al., 1996; Stice, 1992). Following moderator-as-process theorizing, this result

provides evidence that discomfort reduction drives the relationship between incentives and

MDC (Pirlott & MacKinnon, 2017; Spencer et al., 2005).

Self-serving behavior. We conducted an analysis of variance (ANOVA), entering the

assess-target-before-incentives and the assess-target-after-incentives conditions as the

30

independent variable, and self-serving behavior (i.e., tickets kept for the self) as the dependent

variable.6 The main effect of the experimental condition was significant: F(1,171) = 5.29, p

= .023, ηp2 = 0.03. Participants behaved more self-servingly (e.g., kept more tickets for

themselves) when they read the target’s description after knowing about the allocation task as

opposed to when they read the description before knowing about the allocation task. A

bootstrapping procedure with 5000 resamples (Hayes, 2013; Preacher & Hayes, 2004)

revealed that the direct effect of the experimental condition on self-serving behavior was not

significant: index = 0.13, 95% CI [-0.14, 0.40]. The indirect effect of the experimental

condition on self-serving behavior through dissimilarity construal was, however, significant:

index = 0.20, 95% CI [0.10, 0.34]. This provides evidence that MDC increases self-serving

behavior, in line with H3.

Control variables. The effect of gender on dissimilarity construal was significant,

such that women felt more dissimilar to targets than men, F(1,264) = 8.70, p = .003, ηp2

= .032. However, gender did not interact with our experimental condition in the formation of

dissimilarity construal, F(2,264) = .634, p = .531. Otherwise there were no significant effects

of the demographic variables on our dependent variables.

Discussion

In sum, Study 3 provided two key additional insights that help elucidate the MDC

phenomenon. The first concerned the manipulation of the presence of incentives as opposed

to their relative magnitude as was done in the previous studies. We found that when

participants read information about a target before having any incentives to behave self-

servingly, they were less likely to construe the target as dissimilar to themselves (in line with

6 We excluded the assess-target-after-incentives-no-discomfort condition from this analysis since there was no

variation in self-serving behavior: all participants kept 7 tickets for themselves, as prescribed by the

experimenter. 31

H1) and they were subsequently less likely to engage in self-serving behavior (in line with

H3). Interestingly, these findings also suggest that participants were not able to re-shape their

dissimilarity construal with respect to the target when they had assessed that target before

incentives for self-serving behavior were introduced. Although we did not include a second

measurement of dissimilarity construal after incentives, we presume that if participants had

been able to engage in MDC after learning about incentives, they would have done so and

thus behaved as self-servingly as the group who had engaged in MDC. This hints at the

important idea that MDC (and subsequent self-serving behavior) may be prevented if attitudes

about a target are made explicit before incentives to behave self-servingly at the expense of

that target are introduced. Additionally, this would be in line with the notion that it is difficult

for people to change attitudes to which they have previously committed in an explicit manner

(Cialdini, Trost & Newsom, 1995), and with the idea that motivated reasoning cannot

completely overturn established attitudes (Kunda, 1990).

As a second key insight, Study 3 shed light into the mechanisms underlying the MDC

phenomenon – namely, that discomfort reduction is the reason people engage in MDC.

Employing a moderator-as-process (Spencer et al., 2005) or blockage design (Pirlott &

MacKinnon, 2017), Study 3 demonstrated that participants did not engage in MDC when they

had no reason to reduce discomfort, which provided evidence that discomfort reduction is

indeed the reason behind MDC.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

To sum up, our research provides strong evidence that the temptation to behave self-

servingly at the expense of others may itself prompt people to perceive those others as

dissimilar to the self, and that these motivated processes (which we term “Motivated

Dissimilarity Construal” or MDC) have, in turn, an important influence in determining

people’s self-serving choices. Together, these studies offer important insight into research on 32

interpersonal (dis)similarity and behavioral ethics, including on the important constructs of

moral intensity, motivated reasoning, and moral disengagement, as well into research on

resource allocation dilemmas.

Implications for Theory and Research

First, our paper provides important contributions to research on interpersonal

dissimilarity (Liviatan et al., 2008). Our research expands the current understanding of the

antecedents of interpersonal (dis)similarity construal by showing that not only characteristics

of the target (e.g., existing in-group/out-group distinctions based on age, nationality, skin

color, etc.) determine these construals (e.g., Batson et al., 1981, 1995, 2005; Brewer, 1979;

Davis, 1994; Dovidio, 1984; Hornstein, 1972, 1976; Kramer & Brewer, 1984; Krebs, 1975;

Levine et al., 2005; Maner et al., 2002; Sole et al., 1975; Stotland, 1969; Stürmer et al., 2006),

but also that the motivation of the perceiver or decision maker also plays a key role in shaping

how (dis)similar others are construed to be. This important finding supports the underexplored

notion that interpersonal perceptions cannot be established objectively and independently of

the perceiver’s motivation (cf. Berscheid, Graziano, Monson & Dermer, 1976; Darley &

Berscheid, 1967), and that such motivation should thus be taken into account when assessing

the antecedents of (dis)similarity perceptions.

Our paper also makes important contributions to the literature of behavioral ethics

(Kish-Gephart et al., 2010; Treviño, Weaver & Reynolds, 2006). Research on ethical decision

making has long demonstrated that certain characteristics surrounding an ethical issue –

referred to as the moral intensity of the issue, such as serious consequences or perceived

closeness/similarity to the victim – prevent people from engaging in behavior with harmful

consequences for others (e.g., Barnett, 2001; Carlson et al., 2002; Jones, 1991, Kish-Gephart

et al., 2010; Mencl & May, 2009). In more recent developments of this literature, the

sensemaking-intuitionist model has argued that certain issue characteristics – such as the 33

seriousness of the consequences – are likely to be subject to ambiguity and subsequently

biased by the decision makers’ expectations and motivations (Sonenshein, 2007). Our

findings provide empirical support for the latter model by demonstrating that even issue

characteristics that seem less subject to ambiguity, such as psychological distance, are indeed

biased by the decision maker’s motivation. By so doing, our research indicates that studying

issue characteristics as factors that exist independently of the existing incentives to engage in

a transgression may provide an incomplete picture of the relationship between these issue

characteristics (e.g., psychological distance) and harmful behavior.

In addition, our research contributes to other important constructs in the field of

behavioral ethics, such as motivated reasoning (Ditto, Pizarro, & Tannenbaum, 2009; Paharia,

Vohs & Dehspandé, 2013; Shalvi et al., 2015) and some forms of (situational) moral

disengagement (Kish-Gephart, Detert, Treviño, Baker & Martin, 2014). Prior research had

generally investigated motivated reasoning as taking place after a transgression, with the

intention of reducing experienced discomfort (e.g., Ayal & Gino, 2011; Barkan et al., 2012;

Shalvi et al., 2011; Shu et al., 2012). Instead, our research demonstrates that incentives to

behave self-servingly and anticipated feelings of discomfort about self-serving behavior can

trigger such motivated processes that in turn, once engaged, increase the likelihood that

people engage in the self-serving acts. That is to say, we provide solid evidence that

motivated reasoning is not only relevant as a post-hoc rationalization, but that the opportunity

to engage in motivated reasoning can itself increase the likelihood that people engage in self-

serving acts. Moreover, our work also helps establish the boundary conditions of motivated

reasoning by demonstrating that this type of reasoning can be prevented or at least reduced by

establishing attitudes before any motivated processes are engaged, for example, before

incentives to perceive someone as dissimilar are introduced.

34

Furthermore, our paper provides some empirical support for the construct of moral

disengagement, particularly for the sub-dimension of dehumanization (Bandura, Barbaranelli,

Caprara & Pastorelli, 1996; Moore, Detert, Treviño, Baker & Mayer, 2012). Dehumanization

helps people disengage from their moral concerns by increasing psychological distance

towards the victims of their transgressions, thereby serving a similar function to MDC.

Scholars have recently suggested that incentives to engage in a transgression can also drive

moral disengagement processes, which had been otherwise studied as arising from existing

circumstances independent of personal motivation (Kish-Gephart et al., 2014). Our results

empirically support the notion of incentivized or situational moral disengagement (Kish-

Gephart et al., 2014) by showing that certain forms of psychological distance, which facilitate

moral disengagement, are indeed driven by incentives. It is important to highlight, however,

that MDC represents a more subtle form of psychological distancing through which people

come to see the victims as dissimilar but not necessarily as less human; for this reason, it

might be easier to engage in MDC as opposed to dehumanization in everyday social

interactions in organizations.

Finally, our paper has implications for research on resource-allocation dilemmas,

particularly those employing variations of the dictator game (Charness & Gneezy, 2008).

Previously, scholars have demonstrated that removing the anonymity of the victims of a

behavior or providing some information about those victims reduces the likelihood that

decision makers engage in a self-serving distribution of resources (e.g., Bohnet & Frey, 1999;

Burnham, 2003; Charness & Gneezy, 2008; Gino et al., 2010). Our research expands these

prior findings by demonstrating that even if victims are not anonymous and information is

provided about those victims, decision makers can process that information in a motivated

and self-serving manner, that is, in a manner that makes them feel comfortable distributing

resources in a self-serving manner. This suggests that, in addition to providing information

35

about the victims, motivated construal of those victims should be addressed if the fairness of

resource allocations is to be improved.

Limitations and Future Research

It is worthwhile pointing to some of the limitations in our results. First, the use of

hypothetical decision making in Study 2 may be considered a limitation, given the social

desirability biases associated with hypothetical tasks (Norwood & Lusk, 2011).

Notwithstanding this limitation, it should be highlighted that EVM (Experimental Vignette

Methodology) has been widely employed to tackle management phenomena (for a review see

Aguinis & Bradley, 2014), and that both hypothetical and real rewards have been found to

generate similar behavioral responses (Kühberger, Schulte-Mecklenbeck & Perner, 2002;

Locey et al., 2011; Madden, Begotka, Raiff & Kastern, 2003). Furthermore, we consider that

our findings on MDC in this paper are strong precisely because they were confirmed with the

use of both hypothetical and real rewards and behavior. Since both real and hypothetical tasks

each have strengths and weaknesses in representing actual everyday behavior, researchers

argue that validating results with both types of methodologies can increase confidence in the

applicability of the results to real life (Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1956; Locey et al., 2011).

Another potential limitation of our research is that we did not include a manipulation

check in Study 3 to explicitly test whether participants in the “no discomfort” condition had

indeed experienced no reason or need to reduce discomfort. Given a vast body of research that

has consistently demonstrated that discomfort does not arise without personal responsibility

(e.g., Carlsmith & Gross, 1969; Cooper, 1971; Cooper & Fazio, 1984; Folger & Skarlicki,

1998; Gosling et al., 2006; Kunda, 1990; O’Keefe, 2000; Tangney et al., 1996; Stice, 1992), it

is, however, highly unlikely that participants had any reason to reduce discomfort when their

self-serving allocation was decided by someone else. It should also be mentioned that we

purposely chose to exclude such measurement because asking participants information about 36

their need to reduce discomfort could have increased their suspicions about the intentions of

the study and contaminated the subsequent dependent variable of self-serving behavior. For

similar reasons, prior research using the moderator-as-process design has excluded

manipulation checks of sensitive variables (e.g., Zanna & Cooper, 1974; Cooper et al., 1978;

Li et al., 2012) and most of the literature on motivated reasoning has inferred that a

discomfort reduction process drives motivated cognitions without explicitly measuring such

process (e.g., Chatzidakis et al., 2004; Hsee, 1995; Kunda, 1990; Schweitzer & Hsee, 2002;

Shalvi et al., 2011, 2015; Shu et al., 2012). Finally, it is important to highlight that our

consistent findings across the three studies that MDC increased self-serving behavior is an

indication that MDC facilitated a discomfort reduction process.

In terms of future work, scholars might consider expanding our initial insights into the

boundary conditions of MDC. For example, group membership might also constrain the

extent to which people engage in MDC, given that people tend to feel more similar to in-

group as opposed to out-group members (e.g., Batson et al., 1981; Hornstein, 1976; Levine et

al., 2005; Stürmer et al., 2006). On a similar note, researchers should consider having

participants make explicit similarity assessments about a target before having incentives for

self-serving behavior, and include a second assessment of similarity construal to test whether

such construal changes after incentives are introduced, that is, to test whether MDC is

possible after explicit assessments about a person are made. Based on the results of Study 3 as

well as on consistency theories (Cialdini et al., 1995), we had inferred that similarity construal

could not change after explicit assessments were made. Future research should consider the

possibility, however, that if a certain time has elapsed after the initial explicit assessments are

made, people forget about those initial assessments and are once again flexible to engage in

MDC.

37

Another potential avenue for future research is to examine the phenomenon of MDC at

a group level, that is to say, to study whether groups that are tempted to behave self-servingly

at the expense of another group come to perceive that other group as more dissimilar. For

example, organizational groups may come to feel dissimilar to an external group of

stakeholders (e.g., customers or other companies) without realizing that the incentives to

perceive that group as different exacerbated the feelings of dissimilarity and psychological

distance. Existing research suggests this is a viable possibility, given that motivated processes

can occur at the group level (De Dreu, Nijstad & Van Knippenberg, 2008), and can serve the

purpose of alleviating collective guilt (Sharvit, Brambilla, Babush, & Colucci, 2015).

It would be similarly interesting to test MDC in interactions involving different levels of

stakes for both decision-maker and target. In our studies, the benefits for the self as well as the

harm caused to others were both relatively moderate compared to more extreme forms of

harm that organizational members can inflict on others, such as embezzling funds or lying to

customers about the safety of their products (Bazerman & Tenbrunsel, 2011). Thus, it would

be worth examining whether MDC also prompts these more extreme forms of self-serving

acts. Additionally, future research would benefit from considering a large spectrum of

gradually increasing financial incentives within one study (e.g., €10, €50, € €100, €200,

€1000, etc.), which would allow researchers to increase predictive power and determine the

level of incentives at which the temptation of participants to engage in self-serving behavior

generates MDC. In a similar vein, a relevant avenue for future research would be to test the

interaction between the type of target and the magnitude of incentives. Specifically, MDC

may be limited by the relationship the decision-maker has with the target only as long as the

stakes are of relatively low magnitude, but as stakes increase, the pre-existing relationship

with the target may matter less for self-serving decisions. For example, it is possible that

considerably raising the incentives, even beyond what is possible in a laboratory experiment

38

(e.g., when people compete for an important promotion in an organization) might make

people distance themselves from others to whom they had previously felt close.

Practical Implications

Organizations are plagued with situations in which decision makers are torn between the

benefits/costs they can obtain/incur from a certain behavior and the benefits/costs incurred for

others, such as dilemmas involving intra- and inter-organizational distribution of resources

(Reynolds, Schultz & Hekman, 2006). In these situations, as our research demonstrates,

decision-makers should be made aware that the potential rewards obtained from a self-serving

choice may bias how dissimilar they feel to those affected by that choice, which will in turn

affect their propensity to behave self-servingly. It is worth mentioning, however, that

interventions to de-bias people are difficult to implement, since people remain biased even

after being told about their tendency to distort and rationalize information (Nickerson, 1998).

Consider-the-opposite strategies (Lord, Lepper, & Preston, 1984) have instead been found to

be more effective in reducing motivated biases by requiring people to find support for

hypotheses opposite to those they are motivated to believe. In the context of our results, this

means that decision-makers facing a decision in which they have incentives to behave self-

servingly at others’ expense could purposely focus on the similarities they share with those

others so as to compensate for their tendency to engage in MDC in such situations.

Our findings also suggest that once people have established attitudes about a target, they

may have a hard time distancing themselves from that target and behaving self-servingly at

their expense. This means that organizations may want to implement practices in which

employees assess each other on a regular basis, and purposely focus on similarities in

personality, attitudes, talents, etc. (as opposed to differences), so that future motivated

processing of those people becomes less likely. We believe that explicit assessments are

necessary for motivated reasoning (and MDC) to be prevented, as knowing a person in 39

advance does not prevent MDC and employees are unlikely to become close friends with each

other (Study 2). For these reasons, focusing employees’ attention on shared similarities with

respect to both internal and external stakeholders who might be negatively affected by the

behavior of those employees, would be of benefit for organizations aiming to avoid or reduce

self-serving acts. It is important to note that these approaches should be implemented before

there is motivation to engage in any form of self-serving behavior towards said stakeholders.

Once the motivation to perceive someone as dissimilar arises, and these motivated processes

influence how dissimilar that someone is perceived to be, it might be difficult to re-shape such

biased perceptions.

Echoing our main implications for theory and research, our findings highlight that

proposed approaches to reduce psychological distance or increase similarity perceptions, may

be limited if the incentives to engage in that self-serving act or transgression are not properly

dealt with. Given how motivated reasoning processes render perceptions, including

psychological distance and dissimilarity construal, highly malleable to serve decision maker’s

self-interest, reducing the incentives decision makers have to engage in self-serving acts may

be instead a more promising route these type of transgressions.

Conclusion

This research demonstrates that when people are tempted to behave self-servingly at

others’ expense, but anticipate discomfort about such behavior, they can engage in motivated

dissimilarity construal (MDC) to mitigate the psychological burden associated with their self-

serving behavior. This means that they can distance themselves psychologically from the

victims of their behavior, which in turn makes them more likely to engage in the self-serving

act. Thus, this paper provides evidence that not only the perceptions of others act to influence

people’s self-serving behavior, but also that the temptation to engage in a self-serving act

40

influences how others are perceived, and that these motivated processes play an important

role in determining people’s actual self-serving choices.

41

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Table 1

Descriptive statistics for Study 1

Dissimilarity

Construal

Self-serving

behavior

Anticipated

discomfort

M SD M SD M SD

Low incentives

(67)

3.30 1.25 4.49 1.21 2.52 1.28

High incentives

(68)

3.81 1.21 5.15 1.27 2.69 1.24

58

Table 2

Descriptive statistics for Study 2

Dissimilarity

Construal

Self-serving

behavior

Anticipated

discomfort

M SD M SD M SD

Low

incentive

Friend (49) 2.53 0.99 3.96 0.93 4.51 1.50

Acquaintance (47) 4.54 1.17 4.85 1.29 3.68 1.76

High

incentive

Friend (46) 2.41 1.11 4.00 0.87 4.27 1.46

Acquaintance (48) 5.43 0.89 5.65 1.14 3.82 1.50

59

Target Anticipated

discomfort

Effect BootLLCI BootULCI

Acquaintance

Low .206 -.026 .443

Medium .430 .242 .638

High .519 .301 .770

Friend

Low -.258 -.562 .001

Medium -.035 -.212 .138

High .055 -.138 .243

Table 3.

Conditional analysis of the indirect effect of incentives on self-serving behavior mediated by

dissimilarity construal in Study 2.

60

Table 4

Descriptive statistics for Study 3

Dissimilarity construal Self-serving behavior

  M SD M SD

Assess-target-before-

incentives (95)

3.21 1.26 5.23 1.80

Assess-target-after-incentives

(84)

3.91 1.38 5.86 1.99

Assess-target-after-incentives-

no-discomfort (96)

3.16 1.11 7.00 0

61

APPENDIX A

Instructions and how to read the information about Participant B

You can now read a description of the participant with whom you were randomly coupled,

Participant B. Read this information carefully, as you will later be asked some questions about

your general opinion of this participant:    

Participant B

Is male.

Is a business student.

Is very ambitious.

Dreams of having his own company.

Is very anxious about doing things in a “perfect” way.

Is very dedicated to his family.

Feels very creative and unique.

Doesn’t like to conform to other people’s norms or rules.

Prefers to stand out.

Is very outspoken and direct.

His favorite activity is to test international cuisines.

62

APPENDIX B

Similarity assessments administered on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all to 7 = very much) for

all studies (reverse coded to form our measure of dissimilarity construal).

I have things in common with Participant B.

I can easily imagine being Participant B.

I feel close to Participant B.

I am similar to Participant B.

63

Figure 1. Summary of hypotheses

64

1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.52

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

Study 1

Low IncentiveHigh Incentive

Anticipated Discomfort

Diss

imila

rity

Cons

trua

l

Figure 2. Interaction between incentives and anticipated discomfort on dissimilarity construal

in Study 1.

65

Low Incentives High Incentives0

1

2

3

4

5

6 Dissimilarity construal

Acquaintance Friend

Figure 3. Interaction between incentives and target on dissimilarity construal in Study 2.

66