Third-party perceptions of mistreatment: A meta-analysis and integrative model of reactions to perpetrators and victims

Abstract

Third parties have increasingly become the focus of research on mistreatment in organizations. Much of that work is grounded in deonance theory, which argues that third parties should react to the perpetrators of mistreatment with anger. Deonance theory is less explicit as to how third parties should react to the victims of mistreatment, though empirical work has pointed to empathy as one potential reaction. Deonance theory is less capable of explaining recent findings suggesting that third parties may react to mistreatment events with schadenfreude. The purpose of our study was to conduct a meta-analytic test of an integrative model specifying the relationships between third-party perceptions of mistreatment and reactions to perpetrators and victims. That model predicted that third-party perceptions of mistreatment would be associated with emotional reactions (anger toward the perpetrator, empathy toward the victim, schadenfreude from the event), cognitive reactions (evaluations of the perpetrator and victim), and behavioral reactions (antisocial and prosocial behaviors toward the perpetrator and victim). Our model testing provides the first quantitative synthesis of the third-party mistreatment literature while surfacing counterintuitive findings that would not be anticipated from deonance theory's arguments. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our work while providing guidance for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights rese…