The DOI matches its Crossref record; 111 of the 111 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Anxious, threatened, and also unethical: How anxiety makes individuals feel threatened and commit unethical acts.
Abstract
People often experience anxiety in the workplace. Across 6 studies, we show that anxiety, both induced and measured, can lead to self-interested unethical behavior. In Studies 1 and 2, we find that compared with individuals in a neutral state, anxious individuals are more willing (a) to participate in unethical actions in hypothetical scenarios and (b) to engage in more cheating to make money in situations that require truthful self-reports. In Studies 3 and 4, we explore the psychological mechanism underlying unethical behaviors when experiencing anxiety. We suggest and find that anxiety increases threat perception, which, in turn, results in self-interested unethical behaviors. Study 5 shows that, relative to participants in the neutral condition, anxious individuals find their own unethical actions to be less problematic than similar actions of others. In Study 6, data from subordinate-supervisor dyads demonstrate that experienced anxiety at work is positively related with experienced threat and unethical behavior. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.
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1 retracted
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Tasselli, S., Kilduff, M., & Landis, B. (2018) · Academy of Management Annals · doi:10.5465/annals.2016.0008 · Cited by 114
Becker, W. J., Belkin, L. Y., Conroy, S. A., & Tuskey, S. (2021) · Journal of Management · doi:10.1177/0149206319890655 · Cited by 73
“…related to reduced job performance (McCarthy, Trougakos, & Cheng, 2016), decreased job satisfaction, job withdrawal (Boyd, Lewin, & Sager, 2009), and increased unethical behavior (Kouchaki & Desai, 2015), the extent to which e-anxiety may affect employee and family well-being has not been explored.”
BackgroundSteinberger, P., Eshet, Y., & Grinautsky, K. (2021) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su13094762 · Cited by 32
Wang, T., Wang, X., Jiang, T., Wang, S., & Chen, Z. (2021) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph18063170 · Cited by 9
Metadata
- Authors
- Kouchaki, M., & Desai, S. D.
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Psychology
- Published
- 2015
- Volume
- 100
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 360-375
- ISSN
- 0021-9010 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1854
- OpenAlex
- W2046765180
- Cited by
- 344
- References
- 111
- FWCI
- 22.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
