Behavioral Inhibition or Activation: How Power Directs Malevolent Innovation

Malevolent innovation (MI) is the generation, championing, and implementation of creative ideas in the awareness that these are –or could be– harmful to individuals, organizations, and/or broader society. Examples of such behaviors are novel ways of committing fraud, creative ways to circumvent rules or laws, and novel forms or manipulation or coercion. In organizations, MI can have severe impact, like decreased employee well-being, increased turnover, and decreased organizational performance.
Despite its harmful impact, existing research is limited to the first stage of MI, known as malevolent creativity (MC)—the generation of malevolent ideas. Previous research has identified anger as an important antecedent of MC, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear, and it is unknown how this carries over into further malevolent innovative behaviors. The present research therefore investigates how anger induces the different stages of MI. Following previous research on power and behavioral activation/inhibition (BAS/BIS), we hypothesize that power influences the way anger leads to different stages of malevolent innovation. Specifically, we propose that anger induces MC; however, whether ideas are then championed and/or implemented depends on individuals’ power. With high power, they are disinhibited and will be more likely to champion and/ or implement ideas; in contrast, this is unlikely for low power people. We aim to test these hypotheses in an experimental vignette study and a daily diary study; in this presentation, I will report preliminary results of this project.