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
Andrew Molinsky
Brandeis University International Business School
415 South Street, MS 032
MA 02454 USA
Phone: +1-781-736-2255
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
*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.
6
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,
7
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
12
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