Expressions of anger can have significant social consequences. Prior laboratory studies have shown that although men may benefit from expressing anger, women are often penalized for it. Yet, more recent experimental findings suggest that this gender-and-anger backlash effect may no longer hold consistently. These mixed results present an opportunity for competitive theory testing to distinguish between alternative accounts regarding whether and why gendered reactions to anger persist or have diminished. We systematically test gendered responses to verbal expressions of anger across ten large-scale archival datasets – spanning 67 years and over 100 million observations – that capture naturalistic emotion expressions in diverse settings, including political speeches, investor call conversations, social media posts, and online reviews. These replications in ecologically valid field data reveal that, overall, anger expressions by women elicited reactions reflecting decreased liking relative to men, yet had no consistent effect on attributed competence. Female and male responders did not differ significantly in the tendency to penalize angry women. Contrary to previous findings suggesting that gender stereotyping and discrimination are fading over time, our time trend analyses revealed no sign of decline: reactions to women’s anger grew slightly but consistently more negative relative to men’s, by about .001 standardized units per year. In sum, although society has made progress toward gender equality in many areas, prescriptive gender biases regarding anger expression remain observable in naturally emerging discourses in the field.
Leader gratitude expression is widely regarded as a beneficial leadership practice. Integrating social exchange theory with social comparison theory, we not only affirm this view but also show that leader gratitude can carry unintended consequences under specific conditions. We argue that for employees higher in prosocial motivation, leader gratitude strengthens employees’ relational attachment to the leader and, in turn, increases organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) directed toward the leader. For employees higher in Machiavellianism, it instead heightens a sense of superiority over coworkers, promoting counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) directed at peers. We tested this dual-pathway model across four studies: two multi-wave field studies conducted in China (N = 524) and the United States (N = 180), and two experimental studies, including a vignette-based experiment (N = 138) and a critical incident technique study (N = 142). Results consistently supported the positive pathway from leader gratitude expression through relational attachment to leader-directed OCB. The negative pathway from leader gratitude expression through sense of superiority to coworker-directed CWB emerged specifically when employees were high in Machiavellianism. These findings advance a target-specific view of leader gratitude, showing that a single positive act can deepen the focal relationship while, for some employees, undermining those outside it.
There are two primary ways to boost profits: increase revenues or decrease expenses. For example, whether a company increases revenues by $1 million or decreases expenses by $1 million, its profits will increase by $1 million (all else equal). But how do people subjectively evaluate such changes to revenues and expenses, and what inferences do they draw as a result? Across nine experiments (N = 6045), an archival data analysis, and four supplemental studies, we document a robust "revenue halo" effect: increases in revenues, relative to equivalent decreases in expenses, lead to more positive perceptions of profitability, in both the short and long run, and result in more favorable overall impressions of financial strength, performance, potential, and trajectory. Consequently, managers who propose ideas for increasing revenues (vs. decreasing expenses) are viewed as more competent; consultants who develop such strategies are more likely to be rehired; and companies that report higher revenues are more attractive to investors. We furthermore propose that the revenue halo effect can be explained, in part, by the belief that strategies for increasing revenues are more innovative than strategies for decreasing expenses. Finally, to underscore the real-world relevance of our account, we analyze approximately 13 million financial news articles, finding that when firms reported increased revenues (vs. decreased expenses), they subsequently rose in Fortune's "World's Most Admired Companies" rankings (the following year). This research identifies a novel asymmetry in judgments of organizational performance, with implications for managerial decisionmaking, corporate communication, and capital allocation.
Employees oftentimes take microbreaks which involve respite activities such as snacking, stretching, chatting with coworkers on non-work-related topics, and surfing the web for entertainment. To date, research shows that employees who take microbreaks typically achieve superior well-being and objective performance levels compared to employees who take fewer microbreaks. Nevertheless, microbreak research remains moored in an employee-based perspective, which is concerning given that this behavior takes place at work, observable to supervisors who might not view break taking as unanimously favorable. Critically, microbreaks run counter to prevailing expectations of engaging in restless, continuous work, as codified by Protestant work ethic (PWE) ideology. Some supervisors may therefore penalize employees who take more microbreaks despite their performance-eliciting properties. In this research we integrate theory on Protestant work ethic (PWE) ideology and the ideal worker ethos to advance a supervisor-based view of employee microbreaks. We assert that supervisors with stronger PWE beliefs will be more likely to attribute lower work ethic to employees who take more microbreaks. We further suggest that work ethic attributions correspondingly hold career-based implications for employees in the form of supervisors rendering less favorable job performance evaluations, promotability assessments, and reward recommendations. We report an exploratory study, two field studies (Study 1 and Study 2) and two experiments (Study 3 and Study 4) with distinctive designs that support our predictions. In all, we extend theory by showcasing the career-based costs of employee microbreaks that arise due to what we call and establish as microbreak bias.
Individuals embedded in networks rich in structural holes are well positioned to broker referrals between otherwise disconnected others. Yet these hole-rich networks create a paradox: although they help brokers identify valuable opportunities, they also undermine the trust required for others to accept a referral—an action that makes recipients vulnerable to the broker's judgment and motives. We address this paradox by examining how brokers use network self-promotion, strategically highlighting their network quality and matchmaking competence, to mitigate trust deficits. Across a field study and two experiments, we show that network structure and network self-promotion jointly shape referral acceptance. Specifically, network self-promotion has asymmetric effects across the facets of trust: it substitutes for the reputational cues of a broker's ability where shared contacts cannot supply them, but amplifies the integrity-based trust that shared network ties convey where those ties are present, and does not condition the role of benevolence-based trust. By situating brokerage within the psychological literature on trust, we demonstrate how brokers' strategic impression management interacts with network structure to overcome the trust deficits inherent in networks that are rich in structural holes.
