Although punishment deters misconduct, protects employees from harm, and maintains cooperation in organizations, not all leaders punish-some are lenient. Employees keenly watch leaders' responses to misconduct. Leniency is often judged as unfair because it violates moral principles of justice, motivating observers to withhold support to leaders. Our research shifts the conversation to explain how moral consideration of offenders factors into the sensemaking of leaders' leniency that influences observer reactions. Perceptions of offender personal need (distress from the offender's personal life that is outside their control) raise observers' humanitarianism, which is reflected in compassion. Compassion elicited from offender personal need motivates observers to reduce the distress from the situation, lessening the unfairness of the leniency and punitive reactions to the leader. Three experiments demonstrated that leniency elicited unfairness that reduced support to leaders; observers' perceptions of offender personal need moderated the effects of leniency, reducing its unfairness and punitive reactions to leaders. In Studies 2 and 3, we found that compassion mediated the moderating effects of offender personal need. Only distress from personal need that is inflicted onto offenders (i.e., other-inflicted personal need), compared to distress from work performance need (Study 2) and self-inflicted personal need (Study 3), elicited compassion that lessened the unfairness of leniency. Study 3 also showed that self-inflicted personal need elicited contempt for the offender, which mediated the moderating effect of self-inflicted personal need, bolstering the unfairness of leniency and lessening support to lenient leaders. Implications to theory and practice are presented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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考虑不当行为中的个人需求：同情心在塑造观察者对领导者宽大处理的反应中的作用。


尽管惩罚可以阻止不当行为、保护员工免受伤害并维持组织内的合作，但并非所有领导者都会惩罚——有些领导者的处罚力度很宽大。员工密切关注领导者对不当行为的反应。宽大处理常常被认为是不公平的，因为它违反了正义的道德原则，促使观察者拒绝支持领导人。我们的研究改变了话题，解释了对犯罪者的道德考虑如何影响领导者宽大处理的意义，从而影响观察者的反应。对罪犯个人需求（罪犯无法控制的个人生活带来的痛苦）的看法提高了观察者的人道主义精神，这体现在同情心上。由罪犯个人需要引起的同情心会激励观察者减少这种情况带来的痛苦，减少对领导人的宽大处理和惩罚性反应的不公平性。三项实验表明，宽大处理会引发不公平现象，从而减少对领导人的支持；观察者对罪犯个人需求的看法缓和了宽大处理的效果，减少了对领导人的不公平和惩罚性反应。在研究 2 和研究 3 中，我们发现同情心调节了罪犯个人需求的调节作用。与工作表现需要（研究 2）和自我造成的个人需要（研究 3）所带来的痛苦相比，只有加诸于犯罪者的个人需要所带来的痛苦（即他人造成的个人需要）才能引起同情心，从而减少宽大处理的不公平性。研究3还表明，自我造成的个人需要引起了对犯罪者的蔑视，这调节了自我造成的个人需要的调节作用，增强了宽大处理的不公平性，并减少了对宽大领导者的支持。提出了对理论和实践的影响。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。