{"title":"Unethical prosocial behaviour and self-dehumanization: The roles of social connectedness and perceived morality","authors":"Jingyan Wang, Hong Zhang","doi":"10.1111/bjso.12776","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Unethical prosocial behaviour (UPB) refers to acts where people violate widely held moral rules to benefit others. In light of previous research on the association between immoral behaviours and dehumanization, we examined whether and how engaging in UPB would impact the tendency to self-dehumanize. Across four studies (valid <i>N</i> = 1640), we found that UPB led to less self-dehumanization than unethical proself behaviour, which was mediated sequentially by social connectedness and perceived morality (Studies 2–4). Moreover, the comparison between UPB and ethical prosocial behaviour indicated that UPB did not necessarily lead to more self-dehumanization than ethical prosocial behaviour (Study 4). Although UPB was rated as less moral, it was associated with similar levels of social connectedness as ethical prosocial behaviour. These results have significant implications for research on morality and dehumanization and highlight the role of social connectedness in reducing dehumanization.</p>","PeriodicalId":48304,"journal":{"name":"British Journal of Social Psychology","volume":"63 4","pages":"2158-2179"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"British Journal of Social Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjso.12776","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Unethical prosocial behaviour (UPB) refers to acts where people violate widely held moral rules to benefit others. In light of previous research on the association between immoral behaviours and dehumanization, we examined whether and how engaging in UPB would impact the tendency to self-dehumanize. Across four studies (valid N = 1640), we found that UPB led to less self-dehumanization than unethical proself behaviour, which was mediated sequentially by social connectedness and perceived morality (Studies 2–4). Moreover, the comparison between UPB and ethical prosocial behaviour indicated that UPB did not necessarily lead to more self-dehumanization than ethical prosocial behaviour (Study 4). Although UPB was rated as less moral, it was associated with similar levels of social connectedness as ethical prosocial behaviour. These results have significant implications for research on morality and dehumanization and highlight the role of social connectedness in reducing dehumanization.
期刊介绍:
The British Journal of Social Psychology publishes work from scholars based in all parts of the world, and manuscripts that present data on a wide range of populations inside and outside the UK. It publishes original papers in all areas of social psychology including: • social cognition • attitudes • group processes • social influence • intergroup relations • self and identity • nonverbal communication • social psychological aspects of personality, affect and emotion • language and discourse Submissions addressing these topics from a variety of approaches and methods, both quantitative and qualitative are welcomed. We publish papers of the following kinds: • empirical papers that address theoretical issues; • theoretical papers, including analyses of existing social psychological theories and presentations of theoretical innovations, extensions, or integrations; • review papers that provide an evaluation of work within a given area of social psychology and that present proposals for further research in that area; • methodological papers concerning issues that are particularly relevant to a wide range of social psychologists; • an invited agenda article as the first article in the first part of every volume. The editorial team aims to handle papers as efficiently as possible. In 2016, papers were triaged within less than a week, and the average turnaround time from receipt of the manuscript to first decision sent back to the authors was 47 days.