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we're at a place where we know a lot
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about the problems but what we need more
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work on are solutions to those problems
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one of the things I'm most proud about
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in this work is that we identify a
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solution a practical actionable solution
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that we can start to make a difference
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in people's lives
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welcome to the ripple effect the podcast
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that takes you on a journey through the
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minds of work and faculty I'm your host
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Dan Loney and in each episode we'll be
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diving deep into the inspiration behind
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the groundbreaking research that Wharton
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professors have conducted and exploring
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how their findings resonate with the
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world today we'll be covering a diverse
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range of topics bringing you the latest
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insights and knowledge that you can
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apply to your life into work so get
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ready to dive into new ideas with the
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ripple effect
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so Nancy you've done a lot of research
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on gender in the workplace how did it
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come about that the topic of female
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moral objectors ended up on your radar
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well Dan I've done a lot of work as you
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said over the years on both gender and
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on voicing issues in organizations in
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fact actually my first academic
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publication was called out on a limb and
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it was about women who were raising
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gender Equity issues in their
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organizations and what made them more
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willing to do so
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and we found that the the role that they
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were in actually conferred legitimacy
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for raising these issues so being in HR
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made more women more willing to raise
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gender Equity issues because they felt
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like that was part of their role
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and what happened was my student and
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co-author you know Flash Forward to
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2020. uh my student and co-author Tim
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was interested in Morality In
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organizations and when he came to talk
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to me about this project it was really a
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fabulous intersection of our interests
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my interests on gender and voice and his
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on uh moral objection
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and so you also found out that women in
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power are more likely to face
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retaliation when they voice ethical
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concerns more so than men in power can
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you break down that finding and what you
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believe accounts for the difference here
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sure
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um as you said we found that
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high-powered women when they raised
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ethical concerns experienced more
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retaliation than their their male
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counterparts and the reason that we
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found for this is that they were
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perceived as being out of control
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and what was really interesting about
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this for us is that a lot of the past
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research on gender assumes that one of
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the reasons that women get backlash is
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because they're they're perceived as not
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warm and friendly but we found actually
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it wasn't warmth perceptions that was
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the problem it was self-control and the
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reason for that is
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frankly people don't like moral
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objectors they they whether they're male
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or female people people think that moral
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objectors are seen as rocking the boat
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as violating expectations as disrupting
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things
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um and one of the things that's really
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interesting is that people think that
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moral objectors are often selfish
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actually
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um and and it's kind of interesting they
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feel like they're selfishly
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demonstrating their own moral
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superiority or you know putting their
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own ideological preferences
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onto other people or the organization in
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this case and you know actually a lot of
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the literature talks about how moral
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objectors are sometimes viewed as
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self-righteous or arrogant
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um and the perception is exacerbated by
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the idea that it somehow seems seen as
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morally inappropriate socially
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inappropriate that you are raising these
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objections right you're disrupting
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things you're you're making waves and so
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when moral objectors violate
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Expectations by by raising these
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concerns other people often think that
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they're they're doing this to advance
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their own moral agenda and there's
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something selfish about that
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um that costs uh the group something
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so let's take a moment and talk about
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this idea of perceived self-control what
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does it really mean in in this context
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yeah so self-control is uh what we mean
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by self-control is that it's either the
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ability or the lack of self-control is
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the inability to restrain those selfish
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or anti-social impulses right for the
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sake of what's perceived as best for the
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group so the kinds of things that we
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would ask is you know
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um does does Dan lack self-discipline is
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Dan bad at resisting temptation you know
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does Dan Act without thinking through
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Alternatives uh and what we find is that
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lower self-control we we actually did
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some supplementary analyzes where we
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find that lower self-control is is
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associated with perceptions of self more
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higher selfishness and lower other
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orientedness so you're you're not as
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concerned about others if you're seen as
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having low self-control
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so there seemed to be a variety of
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gender stereotypes at play here based on
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the work that you've done what are some
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of the strongest ones that tend to
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influence how women are perceived in the
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workplace
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yeah that's a really important question
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Dan I I think that some of the gender
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stereotypes that are really important
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when we think about women in the
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workplace or stereotypes around around
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other orientedness around communality
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right are we doing things on behalf of
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the group are we pro-social are we
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um you know are we uh
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you know in it for everyone
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and that plays out here as well in that
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it's related to perceptions of of
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self-control
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um but what what also you often see in
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many other uh types of work on gender at
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in the workplace is are the perceptions
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of warmth that women need to be warm and
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friendly you know you've seen or you've
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heard about how women need to smile more
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um and and that's sort of an expectation
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of women that they are that they are
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um uh more
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um more connected to others in the
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workplace and and that's really very
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hard oftentimes because it's it's an
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additional uh layer of responsibility
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that women have to really
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um engage with other people while
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they're having to be highly competent at
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their jobs at the same time and so
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what we had in this paper is is actually
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this additional expectation around
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self-control
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uh that that plays out I think in
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important ways
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uh how does retaliation show up in this
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context as well and can it tend to be
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subtle
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yeah so um retaliation was the dependent
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variable we looked at so we were looking
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at the consequences of raising moral
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concerns and how do people react to you
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and retaliation was the was what we
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looked at and retaliation can be it can
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take a lot of different forms it can be
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work related
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um you you could be demoted you know if
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if it's at an extreme case but it can
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also take less extreme forms and and you
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know social kind of Norm uh types of uh
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functions like you know people spreading
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gossip or rumors uh about the person or
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what have you
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um
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it also is important because retaliation
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occurs when people want to either
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silence discredit or discourage people
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from behaving the way that they're
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behaving in the future right so it's
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it's it's trying to maintain order and
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compliance in the face of
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um a behavior that's seen as problematic
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and so when we looked at retaliation in
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this paper and in this study we looked
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it in a couple of different ways so we
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we had a couple of studies where we
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which which were archival studies that
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were done in the field and they they
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asked people if they had experienced
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retaliation in a lot of different forms
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right so they it asked them about you
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know did you if you've ever experienced
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retaliation
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um you know because you raise health or
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safety concerns right or you raised
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issues around fraud
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um or you um you know engage in any kind
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of whistleblowing or or whether you uh
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you know you raise issues around equal
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opportunity or
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um you know some some of the items were
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around whether people had raised uh
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issues around sexual uh harassment or
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even disagreeing with management
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decisions right so it was even as broad
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as that and so in one of the the studies
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we we kind of we looked at those types
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of issues in some of the other studies
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we asked people whether so that study
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actually looked at whether you
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experienced retaliation we turned it
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around in some of our other studies and
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we asked people have you ever retaliated
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against somebody else right and so uh in
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the in those studies we asked things
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like did you retaliate again we gave
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them a scenario and we said did you
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retaliate against that that person or
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did you suggest that they were out of
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line or did you spread rumors or did you
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discourage this Behavior or did you
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indicate that that behavior was
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inappropriate so those are the types of
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of ways that we operationalized
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retaliation in in some of the other
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studies can you walk us through the
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Kevin and Kate experiment
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sure um so so one our fourth study in
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the paper that we published was uh as
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you say the Kevin and Kate experiment
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where we
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um we uh gave a um we gave participants
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uh a task where we asked them to
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brainstorm different ideas independently
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uh and we could said they could use the
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internet to Source ideas and then they
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would they were they were supposed to
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interact with a team a set of teammates
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to develop the ideas
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um and what happened was when they went
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to to interact with the teammates we had
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a um an artificial teammate Kevin or
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Kate uh and Kevin or Kate then
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um was either a high power person or an
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average power person and then um we we
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had Kevin or Kate say either
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I must point out that the moral problem
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a moral problem with this task and I
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can't complete it
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um asking users to use the internet to
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look up ideas could lead to plagiarism
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and this is a serious moral issue and
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and Must Be Stopped right so in one
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version Kevin or Kate said that in the
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other version Kevin or Kate said
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because it might come back to hurt uh
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the the platform and any participants in
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the study I have to point out there's a
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moral problem with the task and I can't
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complete it asking users to use the
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internet to look up ideas could lead to
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plagiarism which could put people on the
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platform at risk and and and this is a
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serious problem and must negatively it
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might negatively impact the platform and
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the workers or get us in trouble and it
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has to be stopped in order to protect
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the platform and its workers from unfair
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retribution so so as you see we had sort
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of this a moral objection in both cases
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but in the one case it was sort of what
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we call the standard frame and in the
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other case it was what we call the
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organizational frame where we're giving
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much more explanation and rationale
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about how it could hurt the organization
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and the people in the organization if we
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were to proceed with this problematic
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Behavior right and so
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um what we then did is we had coders we
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then had peop the the participants who
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received Kevin or Kate's moral objection
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we had them then respond
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um to Kevin or Kate and we coded their
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responses for whether they were they
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were retaliatory or not right and so
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um retaliatory messages were ones where
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they ended up scolding or disparaging or
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criticizing Kevin or Kate uh for their
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behavior
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um and and so like an example of one of
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our favorite quotes from the uh the
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responses was
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um
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you are a petulant little child you need
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to grow up and get a grip
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um so that was an example of a negative
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retaliers response
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uh a pause and then you know we also got
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we coded positive responses so some of
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the responses that that the uh Kevin or
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Kate received were ones that thanked
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them or condoned their their behavior
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um you know one of an example that was
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this is a really important Point Kevin
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or Kate thanks for bringing it up so you
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know we you know we we had a variety of
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ways people responded based on who the
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person was what their level of power was
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and whether they used an organizational
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frame or not and so that that
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interaction between those factors really
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led to quite a disparity in how people
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responded
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and are there ways where you can even
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reduce the potential for retaliation in
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some of these circumstances
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things that we found that was really
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important was when participant or when
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when Kevin or Kate used the
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organizational frame or uh where they
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kind of gave more of an explanation
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about the benefits to the organization
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and to the group
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retaliation was lowered across the board
00:14:29
for men and for women the only people
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who did not experience higher levels of
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retaliation when they used a standard
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frame were the high-powered men
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so the high-powered men were able to
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just do the the sort of this is wrong
00:14:45
and we shouldn't do it right
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lower powered men and women and even and
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even high power women needed to use the
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uh the organizational frame in order for
00:14:59
them to experience lower levels of
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retaliation and be and and be more
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accepted in terms of what they were
00:15:06
saying
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what particular recommendations then
00:15:10
would you have for organizations
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themselves around that type of a remedy
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so Dan I think it's really important
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that when we find things like this that
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we don't put all of the burden on
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low-powered individuals or in this or in
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in this case certain groups of
00:15:28
individuals like women
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um and so our recommendations actually
00:15:32
are more um broad so what we would say
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is we encourage all moral objectors
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regardless of their gender or structural
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power to use an organizational frame
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when when raising moral objections it's
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going to make everybody uh sound more in
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control and it is going to really help
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ensure that gendered outcomes are
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reduced uh and and it really increases
00:15:54
people's receptivity to your moral
00:15:57
objection you know from you know across
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all all ends of the continuum
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the second thing I sorry I would suggest
00:16:06
I would suggest uh is that we we train
00:16:09
people with how to do this right we need
00:16:10
to provide examples for uh employees to
00:16:15
with how to how to frame set these types
00:16:17
of moral objections and and to really um
00:16:19
I guess third is to help employees
00:16:21
really recognize their own bias and
00:16:23
learn to reframe moral objections that
00:16:26
they encounter right I mean I think we
00:16:28
need to raise awareness that we are all
00:16:30
doing this men and women are doing this
00:16:32
right women were retaliating as as much
00:16:35
as men were against high-powered women
00:16:37
uh when they were framing things in this
00:16:40
way right or not framing things uh with
00:16:43
with an organizational frame and so
00:16:45
you know we really need to
00:16:48
um to kind of raise that awareness to
00:16:50
help with debiasing
00:16:52
um
00:16:53
and and then again I I think that the
00:16:55
last thing is just highlighting the
00:16:56
benefits that moral objections can
00:16:58
provide to organizations because as I
00:17:00
started with you know people don't like
00:17:02
moral objectors they feel like they're
00:17:04
rocking the boat they feel like you know
00:17:05
this is just
00:17:07
um you know they're a sticky wheel and
00:17:09
how do we how do we make people
00:17:12
understand that raising moral objections
00:17:15
is not just about pursuing you know a
00:17:18
selfish agenda it's often about pursuing
00:17:21
a selfless agenda and one that does
00:17:24
benefit the organization as a whole
00:17:27
so when you're thinking more broader
00:17:29
scale when it comes to correcting these
00:17:32
types of imbalances do you think it's
00:17:35
better to focus on changing the system
00:17:37
or changing the individual Behavior
00:17:40
yeah that's a really tough one because I
00:17:43
think that we have more leverage over
00:17:45
individual behaviors often as individual
00:17:48
actors right so you know as as a as a
00:17:52
woman who is in a power position it's
00:17:56
important to know that this is a tool
00:18:00
that you can use right to level the
00:18:03
playing field but again I think that to
00:18:06
make systemic change we really need to
00:18:10
do more and we need to raise that
00:18:12
awareness at a broader level
00:18:15
uh and so I think I think that it's both
00:18:17
end quite frankly
00:18:20
so what are some of the the other big
00:18:22
questions that we need to look at right
00:18:25
now around the topic of women in
00:18:27
leadership
00:18:29
so I actually think um
00:18:32
there's a really interesting opportunity
00:18:35
here Dan because what we we're at a
00:18:38
place in our scholarship where we know a
00:18:42
lot about the problems we've documented
00:18:44
the problems lack of representation The
00:18:47
Leaky pipeline the glass ceiling the
00:18:49
glass cliff
00:18:50
subtle forms of bias benevolent sexism
00:18:54
lack of mentorship and sponsorship right
00:18:56
like all of those are things that we
00:18:59
know are problems
00:19:01
but what we need more work on is or are
00:19:04
solutions to those problems one of the
00:19:08
things I'm most proud about uh in this
00:19:10
work is that we we identify a solution a
00:19:14
practical actionable solution that we
00:19:17
can start to make a difference in
00:19:19
people's lives and their effectiveness
00:19:21
in organizations and so you know more
00:19:24
work that examines women's careers more
00:19:28
work that examines how we can get both
00:19:33
men and women to be allies in addressing
00:19:36
these types of issues I think that those
00:19:38
are the opportunities that we have to
00:19:41
really make a difference in terms of
00:19:43
women's leadership
00:19:45
Nancy thank you very much for your time
00:19:47
today all the best
00:19:49
thanks so much Dan always a pleasure
00:19:52
thank you for listening listen to the
00:19:54
ripple effect we hope you found this
00:19:55
episode informative and engaging don't
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