Dirty hands make dirty leaders?! How the touching of dirty objects leads to higher rewards for unethical followers

Ethical leaders are not only expected to behave ethically themselves, but also to promote ethical behavior in their subordinates, for example by rewarding ethical behavior and punishing unethical behavior (Treviño, et al., 2000; Treviño & Brown, 2005; Treviño, et al., 2003). In reality however, this does not always happen; leaders sometimes even reward unethical behavior. In the present studies, we want to examine the notion that the ethical behavior of leaders can be influenced by subtle cues related to immorality (i.e., dirty objects in this case), but also by other conflicting motives, such as self-interest. Using this approach we hope to shed more light on the processes that underlie leaders’ decisions to reward ethical transgressions conducted by followers. Furthermore, we examine whether research on the moral-purity metaphor (e.g., Zhong & Liljenquist, 2006; Zhong, et al., 2010b) can be extended to the domain of interdependent social relationships, specifically, the leader-subordinate relationship, and also identify a theoretically relevant boundary condition to this effect in such relationships