Moral transgressions, moral emotions, and regulatory behaviours at work: evidence from two studies

This paper investigates interpersonal regulation at work across two complementary studies integrating Affective Events Theory (AET) with cognitivist accountability accounts and a content-based perspective on moralization. Study 1 used an intensive repeated-measures dyadic design with 125 German full-time employees reporting 777 weekly interactions with specific colleagues over five weeks. Colleague-perpetrated immorality appraisals were associated with anger towards the offending colleague and punitive regulation, whereas self-perpetrated immorality appraisals were associated with guilt towards the harmed colleague and penitent regulation. Examining moral-content cues via the CAD framework, injustice was the only cue that reliably predicted immorality appraisals across perpetrator loci, with irresponsibility additionally predicting self-perpetrated appraisals. Study 2 replicated the appraisal – emotion – regulation sequence in an experimental vignette study with 302 British full-time employees and provided controlled evidence for the injustice pathway by manipulating injustice as a pre-appraisal cue. Across both studies, moralized workplace events were organized by immorality appraisals that elicited accountability-contingent moral emotions (anger vs. guilt), which in turn related to distinct regulatory responses (punitive vs. penitent). These findings clarify how workplace interactions become moralized and regulated in ongoing dyadic relationships and inform efforts to reduce injustice and support accountability and repair.