Moral Foundations, Himpathy, and Punishment Following Organizational Sexual Misconduct Allegations.

This article investigates why some third parties respond to workplace sexual misconduct allegations by punishing accusing victims and supporting alleged perpetrators. Drawing on deontic justice theory and moral foundations theory—which distinguishes between individualizing moral values (care, fairness) and binding moral values (loyalty, authority, purity)—the authors propose that endorsement of binding moral foundations leads to sympathy toward accused men and anger toward female accusers. Across five studies involving archival data, surveys, vignettes, and field incidents (total n = 5,413), findings show that binding moral values predict perpetrator-directed sympathy and victim-directed anger, which mediate credibility judgments and influence punishment preferences. Additionally, managerial framing of victims as disloyal exacerbates these effects among individuals high in binding moral values, highlighting the role of organizational actors in shaping third-party responses to sexual misconduct allegations.