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Corporations are Cyborgs: Organizations elicit anger but not sympathy when they can think but cannot feel

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  • Rai, Tage S.
  • Diermeier, Daniel

Abstract

Across four experiments, participants saw companies as capable of having ‘agentic’ mental states, such as having intentions, but incapable of having ‘experiential’ mental states, such as feeling pain. This difference in mental state ascription caused companies to elicit anger as villains, but not sympathy as victims. Differences in sympathy were mediated by perceived capacities for experience. When participants had a background leading companies (i.e. senior executives) or when a recognizable brand (i.e. Google) was anthropomorphized, perceptions of experience increased and the sympathy gap disappeared. An organization seen as high in experience and low in agency (i.e. sports team) elicited more sympathy and less anger than companies. Our findings elucidate the mechanisms underlying the link between mental state ascription and moral judgment; the tendency to ascribe some mental states to organizations more easily than others; and the phenomenon whereby companies elicit anger as villains but fail to elicit sympathy as victims.

Suggested Citation

  • Rai, Tage S. & Diermeier, Daniel, 2015. "Corporations are Cyborgs: Organizations elicit anger but not sympathy when they can think but cannot feel," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 18-26.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:126:y:2015:i:c:p:18-26
    DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.10.001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Carly Knight, 2022. "When Corporations Are People: Agent Talk and the Development of Organizational Actorhood, 1890–1934," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 51(4), pages 1634-1680, November.
    2. Arthur S. Jago & Jeffrey Pfeffer, 2019. "Organizations Appear More Unethical than Individuals," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 71-87, November.
    3. Jauernig, Johanna & Uhl, Matthias & Valentinov, Vladislav, 2021. "The ethics of corporate hypocrisy: An experimental approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 131.
    4. Sharma, Monika & Rahman, Zillur, 2022. "Anthropomorphic brand management: An integrated review and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 463-475.
    5. Uriel Haran & Doron Teichman & Yuval Feldman, 2016. "Formal and Social Enforcement in Response to Individual Versus Corporate Transgressions," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 13(4), pages 786-808, December.
    6. Arthur S. Jago & Kristin Laurin, 2019. "Inferring Commitment from Rates of Organizational Transition," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(6), pages 2842-2857, June.
    7. Schniter, E. & Shields, T.W. & Sznycer, D., 2020. "Trust in humans and robots: Economically similar but emotionally different," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    8. Arthur S. Jago & Nathanael Fast & Jeffrey Pfeffer, 2022. "Losing More than Money: Organizations’ Prosocial Actions Appear Less Authentic When Their Resources are Declining," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(2), pages 413-425, January.
    9. Petar Gidaković & Mateja Kos Koklič & Mila Zečević & Vesna Žabkar, 2022. "The influence of brand sustainability on purchase intentions: the mediating role of brand impressions and brand attitudes," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(6), pages 556-568, November.
    10. Wang, Lili & Kim, Sara & Zhou, Xinyue, 2023. "Money in a “Safe” place: Money anthropomorphism increases saving behavior," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 88-108.
    11. Yulia W. Sullivan & Samuel Fosso Wamba, 2022. "Moral Judgments in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(4), pages 917-943, July.

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