Key Topics:
- Blame and Punishment:
- Examination of blame and punishment as tools for maintaining organizational balance.
- Discussion on the psychological and organizational impacts of these mechanisms.
- Norms and Behavior:
- Importance of norms in guiding behavior and responses to violations.
- Punishment should be a last resort; other corrective measures are preferable.
Takeaways:
- Harsh punishment can be destructive and damaging to organizational climate.
- Punishment should be a last resort; other corrective measures should precede it.
- Importance of norms in governing behavior and responses to violations.
- Distinction between private and public blame, and the importance of fair and constructive criticism.
- Exploration of restorative justice as an alternative to punitive measures in organizations.
Further Reading:
- Podsakoff et al. (2006), "Relationships Between Leader Reward Behavior and Punishment Behavior and Subordinate Attitudes, Perceptions, and Behaviors: A Meta-Analytic Review" Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
- Trevino (1992), "The Social Effects of Punishment in Organizations: A Justice Perspective" Academy of Management Review.
- Molemaker et al. (2016), "The Impact of Personal Responsibility on the (Un)Willingness to Punish Non-Cooperation and Reward Cooperation" Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.
Links to Our Guest:
- Dr. Bertram Malle, Brown University.
Bertram F. Malle [Guest] earned his Master’s degrees in philosophy/linguistics (1987) and psychology (1989) at the University of Graz, Austria. After coming to the United States in 1990 he received his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1995 and joined the University of Oregon Psychology Department. Since 2008 he is Professor at the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University. He received the Society of Experimental Social Psychology Outstanding Dissertation award, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, and he is past president of the Society of Philosophy and Psychology. Malle’s research has been funded by the NSF, Army, Templeton Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and DARPA. He has distributed his work in 130 articles and several books, on the topics of social cognition (intentionality, mental state inferences, behavior explanations), moral psychology (cognitive and social blame, guilt, norms), and human-robot interaction (moral competence in robots, socially assistive robotics).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
But the consequences will eventually arrive and harsh
punishment will damage theclimate in a group, in a company
, in a community.
But I think there's this realwarning from history that overly
harsh punishment is quitedamaging and destructive.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome back to the Management Theory Toolbox, your
top destination for uncoveringthe why behind management and
business concepts.
If you're an executive manager,consultant or business student
and you want to dive into ascientifically rooted discussion
of management theory, thenyou're in the right place.
Our journey studying managementbegan with a cosmic
(00:39):
philosophical inquiry into theconcept of emergence, which led
us to realize that organizationsare not exactly these
well-oiled machines thateveryone talks about, even if
that metaphor is sometimesuseful.
Instead, they are betterthought of as living human
systems, and in episode 7, weintroduced the human brain as a
(01:02):
metaphor for understandingorganizations, given the
similarities betweenorganizations as complex
adaptive systems and neuralnetworks.
Neurons are connected, synapsesfiring between them, information
being shared, stored, bondsbeing strengthened or weakened,
reshaped and redefined.
Just like each neuron in thebrain is connected to others,
(01:23):
forming groups, so too areindividual people in an
organization, and we use thatanalogy to talk about the reward
systems in the brain and howthat relates to positive
psychology.
Today, we're going to look atblame and punishment.
Just as the brain uses variousinhibitory transmitters to bind
(01:44):
to neural receptors, thusstrategically reducing their
activity, so too, blame andpunishment are often used as
negative feedback mechanisms inan attempt to maintain balance
and proper functioning in anorganization.
But what exactly are blame andpunishment and how do they work?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Oh, what's this?
That is a demerit, jim.
Halpert, tardiness oh, I loveit already.
You've got to learn, jim.
You are second in command, butthat does not put you above the
law.
Oh, I understand, and I alsohave lots of questions like what
does a demerit mean?
Let's put it this way you donot want to receive three of
those.
Lay it on me Three demerits andyou'll receive a citation.
(02:26):
Now that sounds serious.
Oh, it is serious.
Five citations and you'relooking at a violation.
Four of those and you'llreceive a verbal warning.
Keep it up, and you're lookingat a written warning.
Two of those that'll land youin a world of hurt, in the form
of a disciplinary review writtenup by me and placed on the desk
of my immediate superior, whichwould be me.
That is correct.
(02:47):
Okay, I want a copy on my deskby the end of the day or you
will receive a full desadulation.
What's a des?
What's that?
Oh, you don't want to know.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Our study of operant conditioning has found that in
some circumstances, behavioralcontingencies or rules as Dr
Malott called them in episode 12, are sometimes powerful
behavior management tools,especially if the consequence of
a particular action isimmediate, significant and
likely to occur.
So that means we should imposeimmediate, sizable consequences
(03:23):
on undesirable behavior in theworkplace and we'll quickly get
the results we want.
Right?
If you've been listening to theManagement Theory Toolbox, I'm
sure you can guess my next words.
It's more complicated than that, in fact.
Just like Dwight's attempt toreprimand Jim backfired on him
in that clip from the Office, sotoo can blame and punishment
(03:43):
quickly backfire in theworkplace.
One reason for this is thatpunishment itself is often a
violation of norms.
Now, before we go on, I shouldexplain what a norm is, since
that's a term often used byphilosophers.
Wait, does this mean we're infor a philosophical tangent?
No, not yet.
That'll come later.
(04:04):
In philosophy, norms refer tothe unwritten rules that govern
our behavior within a society orgroup.
These norms dictate what isconsidered acceptable or
unacceptable, guiding ouractions and interactions.
Think of them as the socialglue that helps maintain order
and predictability in our dailylives.
Norms can be as simple assaying thank you, or as complex
(04:27):
as moral codes that shape ourethical decisions.
They are not just rules imposedfrom above, but are created and
reinforced by the communityevolving over time as our
collective values and beliefschange.
Clearly, this is going to be abit of a complicated issue, so,
as usual, we're going to needsome help, and we're fortunate
enough to have with us today DrBertram Malle.
(04:50):
Hi, bertram, and welcome to theshow.
Hi Travis, I'm very glad to behere.
So, before we get started, goahead and introduce yourself and
tell us a bit about yourbackground and your work.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, so I'm Bertram Malle.
I'm at Brown University in theDepartment of Cognitive,
linguistic and PsychologicalSciences.
I grew up in Austria.
I was trained in philosophy,linguistics and psychology and
more and more got intopsychology, got my PhD at
Stanford and then had my firstjob at the University of Oregon
(05:21):
in an interdisciplinary setting,and that continued at Brown.
My work really has spannedquestions of social cognition,
moral judgment and recentlyquite a bit of human-robot
interaction, artificialintelligence and related topics.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Thank you for joining us and I'm honored to have you
on the show.
So in recent episodes we'vebeen talking about behavior
modification in employees, andtoday we want to talk about a
particular reinforcementcontingency, which is punishment
.
Now, as I understand it,there's multiple ways of
defining and categorizingpunishment.
Could you help us firstunderstand how you define and
(06:00):
categorize punishment,especially in an organizational
setting?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Punishment is sometimes used as a term to
cover all sanctions, that is,all responses to transgressions.
I think it makes much moresense to think of punishment as
a class of sanctions that arequite specific and it basically
is a response to atransgressor's norm violation
that puts a penalty, often asevere penalty, on that person.
(06:28):
An act of punishment isnormally a norm violation itself
.
I might harm you, I might harmyour reputation, I might
physically do something to you.
I need justification to do thisfor it to count as constructive
punishment.
That means often punishmentcomes from an institutional role
, from a position of power, andit often is very asymmetric.
(06:51):
The person who punishes putsthe cost, puts the penalty on
the other, and the other canoften not respond.
It's often unchangeable.
Once I punish that's whathappened when I criticize you I
can take back my criticism, butonce I harm you, hurt you, those
penalties are there with you.
So that's a narrower definitionof punishment, but I think it's
(07:13):
very important to distinguishit from what we will talk later
about, namely blame.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Now, from your research, what are some of the
common misconceptions oroverlooked aspects about the
role of punishment in moralpsychology, and how do those
misconceptions impactorganizational practices?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
The first is really a continuation of what I said
earlier, namely to misidentifypunishment with all other forms
of response to known violations.
We think of punishment as thismore narrow, strong penalty that
we put on others transgressors.
If we think of punishment asthis more narrow, strong penalty
that we put on otherstransgressors, if we think of
punishment as this more narrowresponse to norm violations,
(07:51):
there is a strong assumption inthe literature that punishment
fosters cooperation, that atleast the threat of punishment
in groups makes free riders,norm violators, less likely to
take on that opportunity to freeride.
There is some evidence thatthis is true.
But this is very often true infairly constrained settings,
(08:13):
often in game-theoreticallydefined behavioral economics
settings.
In the more complex social world, punishment is often too strong
of a response.
It's the heavy artillery thatin educational research,
developmental research and inbehavioral research suggests is
a very last resort, that thereare many other forms of
(08:37):
responding to a violation thatshould precede punishment in
order to reserve it only for thesituations in which there's
almost nothing left.
No criticism helps, nocorrective or encouraging action
helps, and punishment is thelast resort.
The other misconception is thatpunishment is considered to be
evolutionarily old.
We've always punished eachother, but, as we might discuss
(09:00):
a little later, punishment isrelatively new because it comes
from a position of power andinstitutions.
It is probably only about12,000 years old since humans
settled down and built largersocieties with greater
hierarchical institutionalstructure.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Do you think that the reluctance to punish,
especially in modernorganizations in the corporate
world, for example, stems fromthe fact that the employees who
receive a punishment do actuallyhave a recourse, which is to
leave, and that's very damagingto the company itself?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yes, that's certainly one recourse, but there are
even other things that employeeswho feel hurt and harmed by
punishment can do.
Namely, they can sabotage partsof the company, they can
retaliate, they can sow theseeds of more conflict.
That may still also hurt them,but retaliation is very costly,
(09:55):
where both sides take on moreand more costs only to harm the
other.
So, even before they leave,those who are punished, who are
especially punished too harshly,will put destructive forces
into the organizationalstructure.
And that's what people oftendon't recognize that punishment
has not only immediate costs ofhurting, but also long-term
(10:19):
costs for the community.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Now, is this reluctance to punish a
culturally specific result?
In other words, do somecultures tolerate, accept or
even encourage punishments as abehavior modification tool more
than others?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
punish and in what forms they punish.
There's a paper from 2013 byBayer and van Lange, which was
published in Perspectives onPsychological Sciences and looks
at punishment and relatedphenomena across 18 societies
and it's very clear thatvariation is substantial.
But I would go even further andsay not only between societies
do we find variations, butacross history do we find
substantial variation?
(11:09):
If you think about the harshpunishments, even in legal,
justified and at least at thosetimes settings, punishment was
just absolutely brutal.
Nowadays we have restrainedourselves somewhat.
There's a form of civilizingpunishment and yet it is still a
very high cost that we put oneach other.
(11:30):
So you see, possibly punishmentvarying across time, across
societies, across differentcompanies and across different
people who take the opportunity,for example, of a position of
power and use it to punish orrestrain themselves and use the
mildest form of correction thatthey can come up with.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
In your opinion, what's the balance between
punitive measures andrestorative approaches in
addressing those norm violationswith organizations, and how
does that balance affect theoverall moral climate?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
The balance in the legal setting between penalties
and restorative processes isquite a sad asymmetric one.
There are movements ofincreasing restorative justice
and possibly even transformativejustice processes, but we are
still very much dominated bystrong punitive responses to
(12:25):
crime and violations Inorganizational settings.
Clearly there is much less ofthis strong punitive orientation
because of the costs to theindividuals involved, to the
community.
But restoration is still a verycomplex process and unless you
have similar norms in place forhow to respond to violations and
(12:48):
how possibly those who werepunished or at least criticized
might act to restore their ownstanding, their own role in the
community, unless you have allthese norms, it becomes
amorphous and then maybe there'smore room for retaliation and
more room for destruction.
So just as we have norms thatprevent violating actions to
(13:10):
occur, we can and should havenorms for how we respond to norm
violations.
That is fundamentally theadvantage of the law that it
specifies quite strongly whatthese responses are, though they
may still be sometimesasymmetrically and unjustly
applied.
At the very least they're madetransparent, they're made
explicit.
If you have punishment that'sunregulated and unfortunately
(13:34):
online we have quite a bit ofthese unregulated responses then
we cannot form restorative actsas easily, because it's unclear
whether they will be successfulor not.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, and thinking about our legal system, so much
of it.
If we look through the legalcodes, it seems like it's almost
entirely punitive.
You fail to do this, you'regoing to get this fight or
you're going to get thispunishment imposed upon you, and
there's very little restorativefocus.
And I'm curious if you thinkthat positive psychology can
(14:08):
play a role in this.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
One of the motivations of positive
psychology has certainly been toshift the focus from negative
to positive, from destruction toconstruction, from biases and
flaws to strengths, and thetransition from thinking only in
terms of punitive measures whentransgressions happen to
possibly constructive orreconstructive measures is what
(14:34):
I think people who care aboutpositive psychology would think
about.
But it has not dominated theliterature.
The work that you might lookfor is really more in the
sociological literature, a tinybit in the social psychological
literature, and sadly ourinstitutional structures, as you
said, have focused on responsesto violations rather than
(14:57):
thinking about prevention,encouragement, low-cost
admonition, warning, maybeforming allegiances that don't
let non-violations even happen.
And I think that that's similarto health.
We can respond in ourhealthcare system to illness and
to damages, or we can thinkabout prevention that those
(15:21):
illnesses and damages may noteven happen in the first place
or might be much milder.
And I think this is one of thedeep challenges of large
societies of strangers that wealways respond.
We react to negative eventsrather than trying to anticipate
them and to build forcestowards a more positive future.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Now can you help us understand the interplay between
individual moral judgments andcollective norms within an
organization and how thisdynamic influences decisions
related to punishment and reward?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
There's certainly a distinction between what people
sometimes call individual moralconvictions, and those are
sometimes more extreme forms ofnorms and values that
individuals arrive at and maybejustify for themselves.
But fundamentally, moraljudgments are made in light of
norms.
Norms are always collective andmoral judgments, when made in a
(16:21):
community, need to obey thenorms both of the original
action.
I can only make a negativemoral judgment if a norm existed
that somebody violated.
I can only make a positivemoral judgment, such as praise,
if somebody's behavior exceededthe expectation.
What happens then when themoral judgment actually is
(16:42):
uttered as a social act?
There are new norms that governhow appropriate that moral
judgment was, and I think thisis another aspect of morality
that's often overlooked that notonly are there first-order
norms for how we are supposed tobehave, but there are
second-order norms that governhow we are supposed to respond
to violations of thesefirst-order norms.
(17:03):
And this is where again, tobring up online behavior, where
these norms of how strongly wecan criticize, how harshly can
we point out somebody'sviolation, are much more loose,
are much less regulated and thecosts of being absolutely mean
and horrible are much lower.
If in an organization, during ateam meeting, you really go
(17:24):
after somebody, you chide themfor a mistake they made, you are
violating norms, and thatitself becomes a serious problem
for the team.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
So even the act of punishment itself can be a
violation of norms.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Absolutely, and in fact that's why I said earlier,
punishment is often situated inan institutional role.
The boss can punish.
The employee cannot punish theboss unless indirectly, through
reputation-damaging gossip orthrough leaving, as you
mentioned earlier.
But punishment and many otherforms of responding to
(18:04):
violations are normally governedby rules that make sure it is a
fair response, a proportionalresponse.
It doesn't mean we don'tviolate these norms.
We sometimes punish too harshlyif our power position allows us
to.
But the consequences willeventually arrive and harsh
punishment will damage theclimate in a group, in a company
(18:27):
, in a community.
And historically we see thatsome cultures that had extremely
harsh punishment did notsucceed, did not maintain the
health and peace in theircommunity, and often there's an
escalation between harsherpunishment and more crime.
There's a whole literature onthis issue, but I think there's
this real warning from historythat overly harsh punishment is
(18:50):
quite damaging and destructive.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So that's interesting because the overall sense of
what I'm getting from thisconversation is a series of
warnings for leaders about usingpunishment, and that seems to
dovetail very well with thatoverall reluctance that you
pointed out to actually punish.
I'm curious if that's alwaysthe right response.
If there are situations wherethat reluctance is hindering an
(19:25):
appropriate response that shouldhave been taken, that
reluctance is hindering anappropriate response that should
have been taken, and leadersmay need to have a little bit
more courage to confront some ofthese messy issues head on when
they arise.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I absolutely agree.
But we have to recognize thatpunishment is only one of the
tools with which we can respondto violations, to maybe even
looming violations.
The reluctance to punish comesin part from the recognition
that punishment is a ratherharsh and maybe dangerous tool.
So we have to think about whatother tools we have.
(19:57):
We have, as I said, tools ofprevention, tools of criticism,
tools of maybe constructivelyworking on the betterment of the
process that we're in thesituation, that we're in the
team that we're forming, ratherthan individually singling out
the single transgressor,thinking about how the community
(20:18):
as a whole, the team as a whole, the organization as a whole
can improve that.
There are other tools available.
We may not need to usepunishment.
Reluctance is then fullyjustified.
But it doesn't mean we leaveviolations be.
It doesn't mean that therearen't sometimes situations
where this last resort needs tobe taken.
(20:39):
Somebody has to be fired.
They are such poison to thecommunity.
No way can you expect thatafter the third or fourth
attempt to change the person'sbehavior, to change the
situation, is there really hopefor improvement.
But there are many other stepsbefore, many other tools that
are available that might beactually more constructive and
(20:59):
more successful because theydon't come with all the
additional harms and damagesthat punishment often comes with
.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I think this brings up a philosophical tangent, and
I wouldn't do justice to ourlisteners without queuing up our
usual mysterious soundtrack.
There we go.
If we look at this from anethical perspective, it reminds
me of a utilitarian approach.
For those who might not befamiliar, utilitarianism is an
(21:28):
ethical system that essentiallyweighs the negative consequences
of an action against thepositives and chooses the one
that produces the most overallgood or minimizes the overall
harm.
In simple terms, it's likesaying the ends justify the
means.
The classic example is thetrolley problem.
Imagine a train hurtling down atrack toward five people tied up
(21:50):
and unable to move.
You have the power to pull alever and divert the train onto
another track where only oneperson is tied up.
A utilitarian would argue thatpulling the lever, even though
it sacrifices one person whowould otherwise not have been
harmed, is the right actionbecause it results in the least
overall harm.
That's kind of what I sensehappening here.
(22:11):
We might decide that firingsomeone or enforcing a harsh
punishment is necessary because,overall, it causes the least
harm.
As you mentioned, this personcould be so detrimental to the
community that removing them,despite the significant costs
and risks associated with suchpunishment, as you've laid out
is better than the alternatives.
(22:32):
This contrasts with virtueethics, which might argue that
punishment carries someintrinsically negative moral
qualities that we should avoid.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, I don't really believe in innate, intrinsic,
essentialist conceptions ofvalues, norms, punishment.
But I'm also not theutilitarian in the sense that
all that counts are consequences, but rather, as we discussed
earlier, punishment is embeddedin a set of norms, not just
those first-order norms aboutacting appropriately but
(23:06):
punishing appropriately.
So these norms guide the formsand conditions under which we
might punish and which othertools we might choose instead.
And the norms have formed overtime, most likely by responding
to consequences.
(23:26):
So I think there's sometimes amisunderstanding that there's a
contradiction between a morenorm-oriented ethical system and
the utilitarian system.
A community would not maintaincertain norms if they weren't
successful in the long run.
If the consequences of thatnorm system, of that community
weren't visible, we would haveto change something.
(23:48):
If our community is too loose,too tight, that means the
consequences feed back into thenorm system.
But we cannot calculate theconsequences of our actions
anywhere near the wayutilitarians theorize.
We follow norms because thenorms are a helpful shortcut to
make sure that we continuesomething that seems to have
(24:09):
worked in the community, andthat includes punishment.
If the norm puts punishment asa last resort, that's probably a
good reason for that, becausecosts of harsh punishment have
been observed.
Similarly, if suddenly noresponse to norm violations
occur, that would lead tonegative consequences and soon
the norms might have to changeand we have to reinstitute some
(24:32):
form of criticism, some form ofresponse that puts at least mild
penalties on norm violators.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Now shifting to the topic of blame, which you make a
distinction between punishmentand blame, can you tell us what
are some of the psychologicalmechanisms behind blaming in
workplace settings?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
When we talk about blame we need to distinguish
between really two forms ofblame.
One form is in the head.
I might observe your behaviorand I might, in my head, really
disapprove of your behavior.
I might analyze it further andI might think that you really
deserve quite a bit of blame forsomething you did, something
you said, but I might not, thatyou really deserve quite a bit
of blame for something you did,something you said, but I might
(25:14):
not express it.
The psychological processesthat govern this in-the-head
blaming are cognitive and theyare partially affective.
But for the most part we look ata behavior in light of norms.
It begins with a negativeevaluation, disapproval, and we
typically quite naturally askquestions about was that
(25:34):
intentional or not?
Did the person have reasonsthat might justify it?
Could the person have donebetter or not?
When we go to public blame,which is the second form of
blame, socially expressed moralcriticism, as we might call it
then all of those cognitiveprocesses are still in place,
but now the social communityputs constraints on them.
(25:55):
I might, in my head, be unfairin blaming you In public.
That unfairness is probablygoing to have costs for me.
I might be criticized forfalsely accusing you, for
unfairly over-blaming you.
So once you're in the social,in the expressed form of blame,
(26:19):
the benefits of a community thathas norms of how we respond to
transgressors Now puts shackleson blame, and blame can become
at least more fair, moreconstructive, and I think that
this is something we need tolearn to blame well, to blame
with the minimum amount ofaffect, with the minimum amount
of hurting the other, and stillget the major job done to have
(26:44):
the person recognize that theytransgressed and to encourage
them to change in the future.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
In my previous organization we had this
explicit principle ofdepersonalization, so if
somebody made a mistake we wouldintentionally depersonalize and
ask what can we fix in theprocess that would prevent this
from happening in the future,and I always felt like this
really helped to provide apsychologically safe environment
and provide internal regulation.
(27:10):
Could this approach mitigatesome of the biases and
complexities that might go intoour attributions of blame in the
public setting specifically?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, I think this is a very valuable and difficult
approach and it is particularlyuseful in communities and
organizations where there arerelatively low levels of
intimacy, where blame andpunishment in its more
fully-fledged form would imposea lot of costs, and costs that
(27:41):
are hard to correct.
In a very intimate relationshipyou can criticize the person,
but there are many paths to undo, to correct, to improve that
relationship.
Because of the level ofintimacy you are less hurt by
somebody because you know thatthey fundamentally love you,
(28:01):
that they're fundamentallycommitted to you, and then, when
they criticize you, that it'smore about this action, this
particular pattern, thisparticular pattern.
In large organizations thecosts are so high that
distributing the criticism,distributing the problem, might
be a very successful way ofdoing it.
Transformative justice has asthe fundamental idea that you
(28:23):
need to transform the communityin order to help change the
individual transgressor'sbehavior.
Somebody transgressed.
The analysis is that this wasnot just that person's fault.
It was that person in thecommunity as a complex system.
So in order to change thefuture, we can't just fix the
(28:43):
person or lock them away, but weneed to understand where it
came from and what the communitydid to permit, to encourage
that particular transgressionVery difficult.
The legal system is really notready for that.
But an organization that triesto do this has, I think, a
greater success in minimizingthe costs of criticism, blame
(29:06):
and punishment, but stillgetting to the goal of improving
the future.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So thank you, and this was fascinating.
Before we sign off, can youtell our listeners how they can
find you and your work?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Sure.
So if you just Google my nameand Brown University, you will
find a number of links,including the Brown faculty
directory.
I also have a lab page forwhich I created a simple bitly
so it's bitly slash SCSRL, theSocial Cognitive Science
Research Lab.
(29:37):
But really Google is prettygood at picking up either one of
the lab pages or my facultydirectory.
Google Scholar is also a pagewhere you can find links to many
publications, and my lab pagehas links to many publications
as well.
Great, thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Wow.
That opened up a lot of newinsight into blame and
punishment.
As Dr Amale describes it.
There's some complications,since not only is the act of
punishment sometimes againstsocial norms, but contextual
norms also develop that defineappropriate constraints on
punishment.
A great example of these topicsis in a clip from Season 4,
(30:18):
episode 12 of the Office, wherewe see Michael Scott trying to
discipline Stanley Hudson bystaging a fake firing.
Michael's reluctance toactually fire Stanley mirrors a
common hesitation among managers, who often avoid severe
penalties due to the potentialhigh costs, such as lawsuits and
damaged morale.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Okay, everybody shh.
Earlier today, Stanley sassedme and Toby gave me some
suggestions on how to disciplinehim.
They did not work, obviouslybecause they were stupid, so I
am now going to fake fire him.
What does that mean?
It's like a mock execution.
It's not a good idea.
Yes, it is a good idea.
(30:59):
It's the only possible solutionI have left well, you can
actually fire no, okay, why areyou telling us this?
Because I want you to behave asif I'm actually firing him.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Oscar, okay, michael, if you hadn't told us this,
then we would have thought thatyou were actually firing him.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I'm not firing him, I'm not.
I need you to act like I amfiring him.
Just what I'm going to do isI'm going to pretend that I'm
firing him and I need you to actlike I am firing him.
Do you get that?
Do you get it?
I'm teaching him a lesson.
He needs to learn humility.
All right, that's all.
I'm Okay.
Here he comes, let's just playit.
Stanley, may I talk to you fora second?
(31:36):
Stanley Hudson, you are fired.
Are you serious?
I am serious, we are allserious.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
You're firing me over three words.
Have you lost your mind?
Do you think I'm gonna let youdo this to me?
I've watched you screw up thisoffice for ten years and I'm
filing a lawsuit and I'm gonnatell them about every stupid
thing you've ever done up inthis office.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Alright, alright, okay, you know what?
Now you know how I feel thiswas a fake firing.
Lesson learned Good work,everybody, very nice.
So.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
I'm not fired.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
That's it, and uh, do you have anything to say to me?
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Oh, yes, I do.
You are out of your littlepea-sized mind.
What is wrong with you?
Do you have any sense at all?
Okay, do you have any idea howto run an office?
Yes, every day you do somethingstupider than you did the day
before, and I think there's nopossible way he can top that.
But what do you do?
(32:37):
You find a way to top it.
You are a professional idiot.
Hey, stop it.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
The situation began with Michael explaining to his
team that previous disciplinarymeasures suggested by Toby have
failed and he sees the fakefiring as his only option, which
, of course, reflects the ideathat punishment should be a last
resort, as noted by Dr Malley.
When Michael goes through withthe fake firing, though, stanley
reacts with anger and threatenslegal action.
(33:05):
This immediate backlashhighlights the risks of harsh or
poorly thought out punishments,which can increase conflict and
cause more harm than good.
Michael's tactics also violateworkplace norms, which can be
seen as a transgression initself.
Dr Mollet talks about howpunishment needs to be fair and
constructive, but Michael'sapproach is anything but Instead
(33:29):
of fostering humility, itexacerbates tensions and damages
Michael's credibility.
Finally, this incident disruptsthe psychological safety of the
workplace.
Stanley's public criticism ofMichael only adds to the tension
, demonstrating how poorlyexecuted punitive measures can
undermine trust and respectwithin a team.
Michael's fake firing strategyin the office is a prime example
(33:54):
of how not to handle workplacediscipline.
It shows the importance ofconsidering the broader
implications and potentialunintended consequences of
punitive actions, aligningclosely with Dr Mollet's
insights on effective management.
If you're a manager dealingwith performance issues, it's
(34:18):
crucial to reflect on thebroader implications of any
disciplinary actions you mighttake.
Consider all possible correctivemeasures before resorting to
punishment.
But if you must proceed withpunitive actions, follow these
guidelines.
First, reflect on norms.
Understand the cultural normsregarding punishment in your
organization or team.
This will help ensure youractions are aligned with
accepted practices and areperceived as fair.
(34:40):
Second, deliver the punishmentas quickly as possible following
the undesirable behavior, toreinforce the connection between
the action and the consequence.
Also, target the punishment atspecific behaviors that have
been clearly action and theconsequence.
Also target the punishment atspecific behaviors that have
been clearly communicated to theemployee.
This helps avoid confusion andensures the employee understands
(35:01):
what behavior needs to change.
Administer the punishment in anobjective, impersonal manner to
prevent personal biases frominfluencing your decision and to
maintain professionalism.
Lastly, before taking anyaction, listen to your
employee's explanation.
This can provide valuablecontext and may influence the
severity or type of punishmentyou decide to implement.
(35:22):
By following these steps, youcan better handle disciplinary
issues in a fair, effective andconstructive manner, minimizing
negative impacts on theorganizational climate.
So with that, thank you forjoining me on another episode of
the Management Theory Toolbox.
Stay tuned for our next episode, where we talk about extinction
(35:42):
.
No, not the extinction of aspecies like dinosaurs, but
you'll have to wait until ournext episode to find out what
that means in the context oforganizational behavior.
In the meantime, keep learning,keep growing and keep adding to
your management theory toolbox.
Thank you.
But the consequences will eventually arrive and harsh
punishment will damage theclimate in a group, in a company
, in a community.
But I think there's this realwarning from history that overly
harsh punishment is quitedamaging and destructive.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Welcome back to the Management Theory Toolbox, your
top destination for uncoveringthe why behind management and
business concepts.
If you're an executive manager,consultant or business student
and you want to dive into ascientifically rooted discussion
of management theory, thenyou're in the right place.
Our journey studying managementbegan with a cosmic
(00:39):
philosophical inquiry into theconcept of emergence, which led
us to realize that organizationsare not exactly these
well-oiled machines thateveryone talks about, even if
that metaphor is sometimesuseful.
Instead, they are betterthought of as living human
systems, and in episode 7, weintroduced the human brain as a
(01:02):
metaphor for understandingorganizations, given the
similarities betweenorganizations as complex
adaptive systems and neuralnetworks.
Neurons are connected, synapsesfiring between them, information
being shared, stored, bondsbeing strengthened or weakened,
reshaped and redefined.
Just like each neuron in thebrain is connected to others,
(01:23):
forming groups, so too areindividual people in an
organization, and we use thatanalogy to talk about the reward
systems in the brain and howthat relates to positive
psychology.
Today, we're going to look atblame and punishment.
Just as the brain uses variousinhibitory transmitters to bind
(01:44):
to neural receptors, thusstrategically reducing their
activity, so too, blame andpunishment are often used as
negative feedback mechanisms inan attempt to maintain balance
and proper functioning in anorganization.
But what exactly are blame andpunishment and how do they work?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Oh, what's this?
That is a demerit, jim.
Halpert, tardiness oh, I loveit already.
You've got to learn, jim.
You are second in command, butthat does not put you above the
law.
Oh, I understand, and I alsohave lots of questions like what
does a demerit mean?
Let's put it this way you donot want to receive three of
those.
Lay it on me Three demerits andyou'll receive a citation.
(02:26):
Now that sounds serious.
Oh, it is serious.
Five citations and you'relooking at a violation.
Four of those and you'llreceive a verbal warning.
Keep it up, and you're lookingat a written warning.
Two of those that'll land youin a world of hurt, in the form
of a disciplinary review writtenup by me and placed on the desk
of my immediate superior, whichwould be me.
That is correct.
(02:47):
Okay, I want a copy on my deskby the end of the day or you
will receive a full desadulation.
What's a des?
What's that?
Oh, you don't want to know.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Our study of operant conditioning has found that in
some circumstances, behavioralcontingencies or rules as Dr
Malott called them in episode 12, are sometimes powerful
behavior management tools,especially if the consequence of
a particular action isimmediate, significant and
likely to occur.
So that means we should imposeimmediate, sizable consequences
(03:23):
on undesirable behavior in theworkplace and we'll quickly get
the results we want.
Right?
If you've been listening to theManagement Theory Toolbox, I'm
sure you can guess my next words.
It's more complicated than that, in fact.
Just like Dwight's attempt toreprimand Jim backfired on him
in that clip from the Office, sotoo can blame and punishment
(03:43):
quickly backfire in theworkplace.
One reason for this is thatpunishment itself is often a
violation of norms.
Now, before we go on, I shouldexplain what a norm is, since
that's a term often used byphilosophers.
Wait, does this mean we're infor a philosophical tangent?
No, not yet.
That'll come later.
(04:04):
In philosophy, norms refer tothe unwritten rules that govern
our behavior within a society orgroup.
These norms dictate what isconsidered acceptable or
unacceptable, guiding ouractions and interactions.
Think of them as the socialglue that helps maintain order
and predictability in our dailylives.
Norms can be as simple assaying thank you, or as complex
(04:27):
as moral codes that shape ourethical decisions.
They are not just rules imposedfrom above, but are created and
reinforced by the communityevolving over time as our
collective values and beliefschange.
Clearly, this is going to be abit of a complicated issue, so,
as usual, we're going to needsome help, and we're fortunate
enough to have with us today DrBertram Malle.
(04:50):
Hi, bertram, and welcome to theshow.
Hi Travis, I'm very glad to behere.
So, before we get started, goahead and introduce yourself and
tell us a bit about yourbackground and your work.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, so I'm Bertram Malle.
I'm at Brown University in theDepartment of Cognitive,
linguistic and PsychologicalSciences.
I grew up in Austria.
I was trained in philosophy,linguistics and psychology and
more and more got intopsychology, got my PhD at
Stanford and then had my firstjob at the University of Oregon
(05:21):
in an interdisciplinary setting,and that continued at Brown.
My work really has spannedquestions of social cognition,
moral judgment and recentlyquite a bit of human-robot
interaction, artificialintelligence and related topics.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Thank you for joining us and I'm honored to have you
on the show.
So in recent episodes we'vebeen talking about behavior
modification in employees, andtoday we want to talk about a
particular reinforcementcontingency, which is punishment
.
Now, as I understand it,there's multiple ways of
defining and categorizingpunishment.
Could you help us firstunderstand how you define and
(06:00):
categorize punishment,especially in an organizational
setting?
Speaker 1 (06:04):
Punishment is sometimes used as a term to
cover all sanctions, that is,all responses to transgressions.
I think it makes much moresense to think of punishment as
a class of sanctions that arequite specific and it basically
is a response to atransgressor's norm violation
that puts a penalty, often asevere penalty, on that person.
(06:28):
An act of punishment isnormally a norm violation itself
.
I might harm you, I might harmyour reputation, I might
physically do something to you.
I need justification to do thisfor it to count as constructive
punishment.
That means often punishmentcomes from an institutional role
, from a position of power, andit often is very asymmetric.
(06:51):
The person who punishes putsthe cost, puts the penalty on
the other, and the other canoften not respond.
It's often unchangeable.
Once I punish that's whathappened when I criticize you I
can take back my criticism, butonce I harm you, hurt you, those
penalties are there with you.
So that's a narrower definitionof punishment, but I think it's
(07:13):
very important to distinguishit from what we will talk later
about, namely blame.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Now, from your research, what are some of the
common misconceptions oroverlooked aspects about the
role of punishment in moralpsychology, and how do those
misconceptions impactorganizational practices?
Speaker 1 (07:30):
The first is really a continuation of what I said
earlier, namely to misidentifypunishment with all other forms
of response to known violations.
We think of punishment as thismore narrow, strong penalty that
we put on others transgressors.
If we think of punishment asthis more narrow, strong penalty
that we put on otherstransgressors, if we think of
punishment as this more narrowresponse to norm violations,
(07:51):
there is a strong assumption inthe literature that punishment
fosters cooperation, that atleast the threat of punishment
in groups makes free riders,norm violators, less likely to
take on that opportunity to freeride.
There is some evidence thatthis is true.
But this is very often true infairly constrained settings,
(08:13):
often in game-theoreticallydefined behavioral economics
settings.
In the more complex social world, punishment is often too strong
of a response.
It's the heavy artillery thatin educational research,
developmental research and inbehavioral research suggests is
a very last resort, that thereare many other forms of
(08:37):
responding to a violation thatshould precede punishment in
order to reserve it only for thesituations in which there's
almost nothing left.
No criticism helps, nocorrective or encouraging action
helps, and punishment is thelast resort.
The other misconception is thatpunishment is considered to be
evolutionarily old.
We've always punished eachother, but, as we might discuss
(09:00):
a little later, punishment isrelatively new because it comes
from a position of power andinstitutions.
It is probably only about12,000 years old since humans
settled down and built largersocieties with greater
hierarchical institutionalstructure.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Do you think that the reluctance to punish,
especially in modernorganizations in the corporate
world, for example, stems fromthe fact that the employees who
receive a punishment do actuallyhave a recourse, which is to
leave, and that's very damagingto the company itself?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Yes, that's certainly one recourse, but there are
even other things that employeeswho feel hurt and harmed by
punishment can do.
Namely, they can sabotage partsof the company, they can
retaliate, they can sow theseeds of more conflict.
That may still also hurt them,but retaliation is very costly,
(09:55):
where both sides take on moreand more costs only to harm the
other.
So, even before they leave,those who are punished, who are
especially punished too harshly,will put destructive forces
into the organizationalstructure.
And that's what people oftendon't recognize that punishment
has not only immediate costs ofhurting, but also long-term
(10:19):
costs for the community.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Now, is this reluctance to punish a
culturally specific result?
In other words, do somecultures tolerate, accept or
even encourage punishments as abehavior modification tool more
than others?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
punish and in what forms they punish.
There's a paper from 2013 byBayer and van Lange, which was
published in Perspectives onPsychological Sciences and looks
at punishment and relatedphenomena across 18 societies
and it's very clear thatvariation is substantial.
But I would go even further andsay not only between societies
do we find variations, butacross history do we find
substantial variation?
(11:09):
If you think about the harshpunishments, even in legal,
justified and at least at thosetimes settings, punishment was
just absolutely brutal.
Nowadays we have restrainedourselves somewhat.
There's a form of civilizingpunishment and yet it is still a
very high cost that we put oneach other.
(11:30):
So you see, possibly punishmentvarying across time, across
societies, across differentcompanies and across different
people who take the opportunity,for example, of a position of
power and use it to punish orrestrain themselves and use the
mildest form of correction thatthey can come up with.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
In your opinion, what's the balance between
punitive measures andrestorative approaches in
addressing those norm violationswith organizations, and how
does that balance affect theoverall moral climate?
Speaker 1 (12:04):
The balance in the legal setting between penalties
and restorative processes isquite a sad asymmetric one.
There are movements ofincreasing restorative justice
and possibly even transformativejustice processes, but we are
still very much dominated bystrong punitive responses to
(12:25):
crime and violations Inorganizational settings.
Clearly there is much less ofthis strong punitive orientation
because of the costs to theindividuals involved, to the
community.
But restoration is still a verycomplex process and unless you
have similar norms in place forhow to respond to violations and
(12:48):
how possibly those who werepunished or at least criticized
might act to restore their ownstanding, their own role in the
community, unless you have allthese norms, it becomes
amorphous and then maybe there'smore room for retaliation and
more room for destruction.
So just as we have norms thatprevent violating actions to
(13:10):
occur, we can and should havenorms for how we respond to norm
violations.
That is fundamentally theadvantage of the law that it
specifies quite strongly whatthese responses are, though they
may still be sometimesasymmetrically and unjustly
applied.
At the very least they're madetransparent, they're made
explicit.
If you have punishment that'sunregulated and unfortunately
(13:34):
online we have quite a bit ofthese unregulated responses then
we cannot form restorative actsas easily, because it's unclear
whether they will be successfulor not.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, and thinking about our legal system, so much
of it.
If we look through the legalcodes, it seems like it's almost
entirely punitive.
You fail to do this, you'regoing to get this fight or
you're going to get thispunishment imposed upon you, and
there's very little restorativefocus.
And I'm curious if you thinkthat positive psychology can
(14:08):
play a role in this.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
One of the motivations of positive
psychology has certainly been toshift the focus from negative
to positive, from destruction toconstruction, from biases and
flaws to strengths, and thetransition from thinking only in
terms of punitive measures whentransgressions happen to
possibly constructive orreconstructive measures is what
(14:34):
I think people who care aboutpositive psychology would think
about.
But it has not dominated theliterature.
The work that you might lookfor is really more in the
sociological literature, a tinybit in the social psychological
literature, and sadly ourinstitutional structures, as you
said, have focused on responsesto violations rather than
(14:57):
thinking about prevention,encouragement, low-cost
admonition, warning, maybeforming allegiances that don't
let non-violations even happen.
And I think that that's similarto health.
We can respond in ourhealthcare system to illness and
to damages, or we can thinkabout prevention that those
(15:21):
illnesses and damages may noteven happen in the first place
or might be much milder.
And I think this is one of thedeep challenges of large
societies of strangers that wealways respond.
We react to negative eventsrather than trying to anticipate
them and to build forcestowards a more positive future.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Now can you help us understand the interplay between
individual moral judgments andcollective norms within an
organization and how thisdynamic influences decisions
related to punishment and reward?
Speaker 1 (15:57):
There's certainly a distinction between what people
sometimes call individual moralconvictions, and those are
sometimes more extreme forms ofnorms and values that
individuals arrive at and maybejustify for themselves.
But fundamentally, moraljudgments are made in light of
norms.
Norms are always collective andmoral judgments, when made in a
(16:21):
community, need to obey thenorms both of the original
action.
I can only make a negativemoral judgment if a norm existed
that somebody violated.
I can only make a positivemoral judgment, such as praise,
if somebody's behavior exceededthe expectation.
What happens then when themoral judgment actually is
(16:42):
uttered as a social act?
There are new norms that governhow appropriate that moral
judgment was, and I think thisis another aspect of morality
that's often overlooked that notonly are there first-order
norms for how we are supposed tobehave, but there are
second-order norms that governhow we are supposed to respond
to violations of thesefirst-order norms.
(17:03):
And this is where again, tobring up online behavior, where
these norms of how strongly wecan criticize, how harshly can
we point out somebody'sviolation, are much more loose,
are much less regulated and thecosts of being absolutely mean
and horrible are much lower.
If in an organization, during ateam meeting, you really go
(17:24):
after somebody, you chide themfor a mistake they made, you are
violating norms, and thatitself becomes a serious problem
for the team.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
So even the act of punishment itself can be a
violation of norms.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
Absolutely, and in fact that's why I said earlier,
punishment is often situated inan institutional role.
The boss can punish.
The employee cannot punish theboss unless indirectly, through
reputation-damaging gossip orthrough leaving, as you
mentioned earlier.
But punishment and many otherforms of responding to
(18:04):
violations are normally governedby rules that make sure it is a
fair response, a proportionalresponse.
It doesn't mean we don'tviolate these norms.
We sometimes punish too harshlyif our power position allows us
to.
But the consequences willeventually arrive and harsh
punishment will damage theclimate in a group, in a company
(18:27):
, in a community.
And historically we see thatsome cultures that had extremely
harsh punishment did notsucceed, did not maintain the
health and peace in theircommunity, and often there's an
escalation between harsherpunishment and more crime.
There's a whole literature onthis issue, but I think there's
this real warning from historythat overly harsh punishment is
(18:50):
quite damaging and destructive.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So that's interesting because the overall sense of
what I'm getting from thisconversation is a series of
warnings for leaders about usingpunishment, and that seems to
dovetail very well with thatoverall reluctance that you
pointed out to actually punish.
I'm curious if that's alwaysthe right response.
If there are situations wherethat reluctance is hindering an
(19:25):
appropriate response that shouldhave been taken, that
reluctance is hindering anappropriate response that should
have been taken, and leadersmay need to have a little bit
more courage to confront some ofthese messy issues head on when
they arise.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
I absolutely agree.
But we have to recognize thatpunishment is only one of the
tools with which we can respondto violations, to maybe even
looming violations.
The reluctance to punish comesin part from the recognition
that punishment is a ratherharsh and maybe dangerous tool.
So we have to think about whatother tools we have.
(19:57):
We have, as I said, tools ofprevention, tools of criticism,
tools of maybe constructivelyworking on the betterment of the
process that we're in thesituation, that we're in the
team that we're forming, ratherthan individually singling out
the single transgressor,thinking about how the community
(20:18):
as a whole, the team as a whole, the organization as a whole
can improve that.
There are other tools available.
We may not need to usepunishment.
Reluctance is then fullyjustified.
But it doesn't mean we leaveviolations be.
It doesn't mean that therearen't sometimes situations
where this last resort needs tobe taken.
(20:39):
Somebody has to be fired.
They are such poison to thecommunity.
No way can you expect thatafter the third or fourth
attempt to change the person'sbehavior, to change the
situation, is there really hopefor improvement.
But there are many other stepsbefore, many other tools that
are available that might beactually more constructive and
(20:59):
more successful because theydon't come with all the
additional harms and damagesthat punishment often comes with
.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I think this brings up a philosophical tangent, and
I wouldn't do justice to ourlisteners without queuing up our
usual mysterious soundtrack.
There we go.
If we look at this from anethical perspective, it reminds
me of a utilitarian approach.
For those who might not befamiliar, utilitarianism is an
(21:28):
ethical system that essentiallyweighs the negative consequences
of an action against thepositives and chooses the one
that produces the most overallgood or minimizes the overall
harm.
In simple terms, it's likesaying the ends justify the
means.
The classic example is thetrolley problem.
Imagine a train hurtling down atrack toward five people tied up
(21:50):
and unable to move.
You have the power to pull alever and divert the train onto
another track where only oneperson is tied up.
A utilitarian would argue thatpulling the lever, even though
it sacrifices one person whowould otherwise not have been
harmed, is the right actionbecause it results in the least
overall harm.
That's kind of what I sensehappening here.
(22:11):
We might decide that firingsomeone or enforcing a harsh
punishment is necessary because,overall, it causes the least
harm.
As you mentioned, this personcould be so detrimental to the
community that removing them,despite the significant costs
and risks associated with suchpunishment, as you've laid out
is better than the alternatives.
(22:32):
This contrasts with virtueethics, which might argue that
punishment carries someintrinsically negative moral
qualities that we should avoid.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, I don't really believe in innate, intrinsic,
essentialist conceptions ofvalues, norms, punishment.
But I'm also not theutilitarian in the sense that
all that counts are consequences, but rather, as we discussed
earlier, punishment is embeddedin a set of norms, not just
those first-order norms aboutacting appropriately but
(23:06):
punishing appropriately.
So these norms guide the formsand conditions under which we
might punish and which othertools we might choose instead.
And the norms have formed overtime, most likely by responding
to consequences.
(23:26):
So I think there's sometimes amisunderstanding that there's a
contradiction between a morenorm-oriented ethical system and
the utilitarian system.
A community would not maintaincertain norms if they weren't
successful in the long run.
If the consequences of thatnorm system, of that community
weren't visible, we would haveto change something.
(23:48):
If our community is too loose,too tight, that means the
consequences feed back into thenorm system.
But we cannot calculate theconsequences of our actions
anywhere near the wayutilitarians theorize.
We follow norms because thenorms are a helpful shortcut to
make sure that we continuesomething that seems to have
(24:09):
worked in the community, andthat includes punishment.
If the norm puts punishment asa last resort, that's probably a
good reason for that, becausecosts of harsh punishment have
been observed.
Similarly, if suddenly noresponse to norm violations
occur, that would lead tonegative consequences and soon
the norms might have to changeand we have to reinstitute some
(24:32):
form of criticism, some form ofresponse that puts at least mild
penalties on norm violators.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Now shifting to the topic of blame, which you make a
distinction between punishmentand blame, can you tell us what
are some of the psychologicalmechanisms behind blaming in
workplace settings?
Speaker 1 (24:52):
When we talk about blame we need to distinguish
between really two forms ofblame.
One form is in the head.
I might observe your behaviorand I might, in my head, really
disapprove of your behavior.
I might analyze it further andI might think that you really
deserve quite a bit of blame forsomething you did, something
you said, but I might not, thatyou really deserve quite a bit
of blame for something you did,something you said, but I might
(25:14):
not express it.
The psychological processesthat govern this in-the-head
blaming are cognitive and theyare partially affective.
But for the most part we look ata behavior in light of norms.
It begins with a negativeevaluation, disapproval, and we
typically quite naturally askquestions about was that
(25:34):
intentional or not?
Did the person have reasonsthat might justify it?
Could the person have donebetter or not?
When we go to public blame,which is the second form of
blame, socially expressed moralcriticism, as we might call it
then all of those cognitiveprocesses are still in place,
but now the social communityputs constraints on them.
(25:55):
I might, in my head, be unfairin blaming you In public.
That unfairness is probablygoing to have costs for me.
I might be criticized forfalsely accusing you, for
unfairly over-blaming you.
So once you're in the social,in the expressed form of blame,
(26:19):
the benefits of a community thathas norms of how we respond to
transgressors Now puts shackleson blame, and blame can become
at least more fair, moreconstructive, and I think that
this is something we need tolearn to blame well, to blame
with the minimum amount ofaffect, with the minimum amount
of hurting the other, and stillget the major job done to have
(26:44):
the person recognize that theytransgressed and to encourage
them to change in the future.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
In my previous organization we had this
explicit principle ofdepersonalization, so if
somebody made a mistake we wouldintentionally depersonalize and
ask what can we fix in theprocess that would prevent this
from happening in the future,and I always felt like this
really helped to provide apsychologically safe environment
and provide internal regulation.
(27:10):
Could this approach mitigatesome of the biases and
complexities that might go intoour attributions of blame in the
public setting specifically?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, I think this is a very valuable and difficult
approach and it is particularlyuseful in communities and
organizations where there arerelatively low levels of
intimacy, where blame andpunishment in its more
fully-fledged form would imposea lot of costs, and costs that
(27:41):
are hard to correct.
In a very intimate relationshipyou can criticize the person,
but there are many paths to undo, to correct, to improve that
relationship.
Because of the level ofintimacy you are less hurt by
somebody because you know thatthey fundamentally love you,
(28:01):
that they're fundamentallycommitted to you, and then, when
they criticize you, that it'smore about this action, this
particular pattern, thisparticular pattern.
In large organizations thecosts are so high that
distributing the criticism,distributing the problem, might
be a very successful way ofdoing it.
Transformative justice has asthe fundamental idea that you
(28:23):
need to transform the communityin order to help change the
individual transgressor'sbehavior.
Somebody transgressed.
The analysis is that this wasnot just that person's fault.
It was that person in thecommunity as a complex system.
So in order to change thefuture, we can't just fix the
(28:43):
person or lock them away, but weneed to understand where it
came from and what the communitydid to permit, to encourage
that particular transgressionVery difficult.
The legal system is really notready for that.
But an organization that triesto do this has, I think, a
greater success in minimizingthe costs of criticism, blame
(29:06):
and punishment, but stillgetting to the goal of improving
the future.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So thank you, and this was fascinating.
Before we sign off, can youtell our listeners how they can
find you and your work?
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Sure.
So if you just Google my nameand Brown University, you will
find a number of links,including the Brown faculty
directory.
I also have a lab page forwhich I created a simple bitly
so it's bitly slash SCSRL, theSocial Cognitive Science
Research Lab.
(29:37):
But really Google is prettygood at picking up either one of
the lab pages or my facultydirectory.
Google Scholar is also a pagewhere you can find links to many
publications, and my lab pagehas links to many publications
as well.
Great, thank you.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Wow.
That opened up a lot of newinsight into blame and
punishment.
As Dr Amale describes it.
There's some complications,since not only is the act of
punishment sometimes againstsocial norms, but contextual
norms also develop that defineappropriate constraints on
punishment.
A great example of these topicsis in a clip from Season 4,
(30:18):
episode 12 of the Office, wherewe see Michael Scott trying to
discipline Stanley Hudson bystaging a fake firing.
Michael's reluctance toactually fire Stanley mirrors a
common hesitation among managers, who often avoid severe
penalties due to the potentialhigh costs, such as lawsuits and
damaged morale.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Okay, everybody shh.
Earlier today, Stanley sassedme and Toby gave me some
suggestions on how to disciplinehim.
They did not work, obviouslybecause they were stupid, so I
am now going to fake fire him.
What does that mean?
It's like a mock execution.
It's not a good idea.
Yes, it is a good idea.
(30:59):
It's the only possible solutionI have left well, you can
actually fire no, okay, why areyou telling us this?
Because I want you to behave asif I'm actually firing him.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Oscar, okay, michael, if you hadn't told us this,
then we would have thought thatyou were actually firing him.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I'm not firing him, I'm not.
I need you to act like I amfiring him.
Just what I'm going to do isI'm going to pretend that I'm
firing him and I need you to actlike I am firing him.
Do you get that?
Do you get it?
I'm teaching him a lesson.
He needs to learn humility.
All right, that's all.
I'm Okay.
Here he comes, let's just playit.
Stanley, may I talk to you fora second?
(31:36):
Stanley Hudson, you are fired.
Are you serious?
I am serious, we are allserious.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
You're firing me over three words.
Have you lost your mind?
Do you think I'm gonna let youdo this to me?
I've watched you screw up thisoffice for ten years and I'm
filing a lawsuit and I'm gonnatell them about every stupid
thing you've ever done up inthis office.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
Alright, alright, okay, you know what?
Now you know how I feel thiswas a fake firing.
Lesson learned Good work,everybody, very nice.
So.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
I'm not fired.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
That's it, and uh, do you have anything to say to me?
Speaker 5 (32:16):
Oh, yes, I do.
You are out of your littlepea-sized mind.
What is wrong with you?
Do you have any sense at all?
Okay, do you have any idea howto run an office?
Yes, every day you do somethingstupider than you did the day
before, and I think there's nopossible way he can top that.
But what do you do?
(32:37):
You find a way to top it.
You are a professional idiot.
Hey, stop it.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
The situation began with Michael explaining to his
team that previous disciplinarymeasures suggested by Toby have
failed and he sees the fakefiring as his only option, which
, of course, reflects the ideathat punishment should be a last
resort, as noted by Dr Malley.
When Michael goes through withthe fake firing, though, stanley
reacts with anger and threatenslegal action.
(33:05):
This immediate backlashhighlights the risks of harsh or
poorly thought out punishments,which can increase conflict and
cause more harm than good.
Michael's tactics also violateworkplace norms, which can be
seen as a transgression initself.
Dr Mollet talks about howpunishment needs to be fair and
constructive, but Michael'sapproach is anything but Instead
(33:29):
of fostering humility, itexacerbates tensions and damages
Michael's credibility.
Finally, this incident disruptsthe psychological safety of the
workplace.
Stanley's public criticism ofMichael only adds to the tension
, demonstrating how poorlyexecuted punitive measures can
undermine trust and respectwithin a team.
Michael's fake firing strategyin the office is a prime example
(33:54):
of how not to handle workplacediscipline.
It shows the importance ofconsidering the broader
implications and potentialunintended consequences of
punitive actions, aligningclosely with Dr Mollet's
insights on effective management.
If you're a manager dealingwith performance issues, it's
(34:18):
crucial to reflect on thebroader implications of any
disciplinary actions you mighttake.
Consider all possible correctivemeasures before resorting to
punishment.
But if you must proceed withpunitive actions, follow these
guidelines.
First, reflect on norms.
Understand the cultural normsregarding punishment in your
organization or team.
This will help ensure youractions are aligned with
accepted practices and areperceived as fair.
(34:40):
Second, deliver the punishmentas quickly as possible following
the undesirable behavior, toreinforce the connection between
the action and the consequence.
Also, target the punishment atspecific behaviors that have
been clearly action and theconsequence.
Also target the punishment atspecific behaviors that have
been clearly communicated to theemployee.
This helps avoid confusion andensures the employee understands
(35:01):
what behavior needs to change.
Administer the punishment in anobjective, impersonal manner to
prevent personal biases frominfluencing your decision and to
maintain professionalism.
Lastly, before taking anyaction, listen to your
employee's explanation.
This can provide valuablecontext and may influence the
severity or type of punishmentyou decide to implement.
(35:22):
By following these steps, youcan better handle disciplinary
issues in a fair, effective andconstructive manner, minimizing
negative impacts on theorganizational climate.
So with that, thank you forjoining me on another episode of
the Management Theory Toolbox.
Stay tuned for our next episode, where we talk about extinction
(35:42):
.
No, not the extinction of aspecies like dinosaurs, but
you'll have to wait until ournext episode to find out what
that means in the context oforganizational behavior.
In the meantime, keep learning,keep growing and keep adding to
your management theory toolbox.
Thank you.
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