Conclusion
Self-gain assumptions provide a parsimonious starting point to a
theory of retaliation, but they cannot explain why—given the
probable risks of counterretaliation—abused employees tend to
respond with deviant behaviors. To account for this puzzle, assumptions
about how victimization affects the self are necessary.
Our research showed how the self-regulation impairment perspective
embraces assumptions that can explain why victims of abuse
fail to consider the likely costs of retaliation, and these predictions
were supported in studies involving different data and methodological
approaches.
More generally, we believe our study speaks to the issue of
when the assumption of rational actors is useful and when it is not
in explaining organizational behavior. A general heuristic could be
to start off with the parsimonious assumption of self-gain and
retain it as long as the theory does not meet empirical facts
implying “irrational behavior” (Lindenberg, 1992). Our findings
suggest that when we observe seemingly irrational phenomena, we
need to extend self-gain models with assumptions about how the
particular social context in which the puzzling behavior takes place
affects the psychology of self-regulation. In this spirit, we challenge
future research to consider the role of the self in explaining
reciprocity in social exchanges.