The Psychology of Loyalty and its Impact on Harm Perception

dc.contributor.advisor

Larrick, Richard P

dc.contributor.advisor

Kay, Aaron C

dc.contributor.author

Tang, Simone

dc.date.accessioned

2018-05-31T21:16:38Z

dc.date.available

2018-05-31T21:16:38Z

dc.date.issued

2018

dc.department

Business Administration

dc.description.abstract

This dissertation examines how people’s loyalty to their groups influences their perception of harm. Specifically, people who are loyal (vs. not loyal) to their ingroup perceive negative actions by an outgroup against their group as more harmful. Three studies provided support for this hypothesis. Students loyal to their university’s basketball team perceived greater harm from its rival basketball team than those who were not (Studies 1 and 2). The effect held controlling for related group constructs, such as group identification (Studies 1 and 2), and related moral constructs, such as belief in a just world (Study 1). The association between loyalty and harm perception generalized to a country context by showing that Americans more loyal to the United States were more likely to perceive foreign tariffs as harmful (Study 3). Rather than differences in memory recall or general negative perceptions of the outgroup, this effect appeared to be due to loyalists exaggerating the perceived harm inflicted (Studies 2 and 3). Furthermore, as perceptions of harm increased, desire for punitive actions also increased (Study 3).

dc.identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16954

dc.subject

Management

dc.subject

Organizational behavior

dc.subject

Psychology

dc.subject

Ethics

dc.subject

Groups

dc.subject

Harm perception

dc.subject

Loyalty

dc.subject

Morality

dc.subject

Teams

dc.title

The Psychology of Loyalty and its Impact on Harm Perception

dc.type

Dissertation

Files

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Tang_duke_0066D_14655.pdf
Size:
660.72 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format