When advantaged group employees courageously stand up for the rights of their colleagues with marginalized identities, research suggests that they communicate a powerful, public “message of value” to such individuals. Yet, this beneficiary-focused perspective, while valuable, does not address the self-meanings that third-party observers may derive from such oppositional courage (OC) and the implications for their behavior toward the courageous actor. Drawing on the social comparison literature, we propose that perceptions of OC can be a source of upward moral comparison information for advantaged group observers. Thus, on the one hand, we argue that perceptions of OC can convey to observers that they lack the moral character of the courageous actor, which is associated with feelings of moral inferiority and, in turn, a motivation to negatively gossip about the actor. On the other hand, we suggest that perceptions of OC can also signal to observers their moral capacity to actively contribute to an equitable, inclusive workplace, which is associated with feelings of moral elevation and, in turn, a motivation to positively gossip about the actor. Central to our theory, we argue that these different reactions depend on observers’ own self-confidence to engage in similar courageous action—what we refer to as oppositional courage self-efficacy. Using data from White employees, we conducted one pilot study (i.e., a critical incident analysis) and two main studies (i.e., an experiment and a three-wave survey), on OC for racial and ethnic minorities and found support for our hypotheses. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research.

中文翻译：

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少数种族和族裔的反对勇气：白人员工道德向上比较的来源

研究表明，当优势群体的员工勇敢地维护边缘化同事的权利时，他们向这些人传达了强有力的、公开的“价值信息”。然而，这种以受益人为中心的视角虽然有价值，但并没有解决第三方观察者可能从这种反对勇气（OC）中获得的自我意义以及他们对勇敢行为者的行为的影响。根据社会比较文献，我们提出对 OC 的看法可以成为优势群体观察者向上道德比较信息的来源。因此，一方面，我们认为，对 OC 的看法可以向观察者传达这样的信息：他们缺乏勇敢演员的道德品质，这与道德自卑感相关，反过来又会产生对演员进行负面八卦的动机。另一方面，我们认为，对 OC 的看法也可以向观察者表明他们积极为公平、包容的工作场所做出贡献的道德能力，这与道德提升感相关，反过来，也能激发积极八卦演员的动机。作为我们理论的核心，我们认为这些不同的反应取决于观察者自己对采取类似勇敢行动的自信——我们称之为反对勇气自我效能。利用白人员工的数据，我们针对少数种族和族裔的 OC 进行了一项试点研究（即关键事件分析）和两项主要研究（即实验和三波调查），并找到了对我们假设的支持。最后我们讨论了我们研究的意义。