Date of Award
5-2025
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Styleguide
apa
Degree Name
Industrial/Organizational Psychology: M.S.
Department
Psychology
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
Jody Illies
Second Advisor
Daren Protolipac
Third Advisor
Anne Hintz Klein
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
Whistleblowing, Personality, Big Five, Ethical Voice, Confrontation, Extraversion
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to further explore already examined relationships between the Big Five and whistleblowing, as well as between the Big Five and three newer conceptualizations of ethical voice (prohibitive ethical voice, promotive ethical voice, and direct confrontation) for the first time. An online survey led to the collection of information on personality, intentions/behaviors, and demographic/control variables for 243 people, 105 of whom were observers of wrongdoing in organizations. Results suggested that Extraversion is the Big Five dimension with the most predictive ability for ethical voice behaviors in the face of wrongdoing at work, followed by Agreeableness and Openness. However, lack of support for many hypotheses, results for some control variables, and the differences in findings for intentions and behaviors suggest potential importance of variables beyond the Big Five in determining how individuals respond to unethical, illegal, and/or illegitimate behaviors.
Recommended Citation
Weir, Izabella S., "Which Apples Save the Barrel? Big Five Personality and Whistleblowing, Confrontation, and Informal Ethical Voice at Work" (2025). Culminating Projects in Psychology. 25.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/psyc_etds/25
Comments/Acknowledgements
Thanks to my chairperson, Dr. Jody Illies, for helping me navigate a boatload of issues along the way and providing detailed feedback, and also for reassurance and a lot of back-and-forth emailing! I would also like to thank Dr. Daren Protolipac for fielding other emails and helping me generate ideas for my discussion (especially for future research), and Dr. Anne Hintz-Klein for providing suggestions which helped me improve the practicality of my writing, particularly in the introduction. I am grateful to my cohort for providing a listening ear and mutual understanding throughout this process (as well as some reminders to have fun every once in a while!). Also, Mimi, thanks for listening to and being understanding of all my problems even from so far away. Thank you to my sibling for providing support via many memes and animal photos while I was away at school.
I am forever thankful to my parents for their endless support and love. Truly, I would not have been able to get to this point without you guys - you allowed me to take my time and grow into what I wanted to be in life, while always having a safe place to land. Dad, thank you for believing in me enough to help me start out at Normandale in the first place. Mom, this whole time I’ve been thinking back to the quote you put on my graduation present. You were right, I didn’t fall - I flew.
Finally, Stephanie - I am so grateful for you and the fact that you came into my life. Thank you for always reminding me to believe in myself, for your endless support (even when I am being a little neurotic), and for being my favorite part of every day, even the hard ones.