Date
9-17-2026
Department
School of Behavioral Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology (PhD)
Chair
Patrick Slowinski
Keywords
cognitive dissonance, moral disengagement, value incongruence, insider risk, counterproductive work behavior
Disciplines
Psychology
Recommended Citation
MacDonald, Ryan P., "A Cognitive-Moral Sequential Mediation Model: Linking Value Incongruence to Counterproductive Work Behavior" (2026). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 8955.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/8955
Abstract
Drawing from Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory and Bandura’s (1999) moral disengagement framework, this quantitative, cross-sectional, correlational study examined whether cognitive dissonance and the propensity to morally disengage mediated the relationship between value incongruence and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) among employed adults in the United States. Data were collected from 125 working adults using measures of value incongruence, cognitive dissonance, the propensity to morally disengage, and CWB. Mediation analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS and Hayes’s PROCESS macro with 5,000 bootstrap samples and 95% confidence intervals. Results indicated that cognitive dissonance significantly mediated the relationship between value incongruence and CWB. The propensity to morally disengage also significantly mediated this relationship when examined independently. A full sequential mediation model was analyzed, and the indirect pathway was statistically significant. This study contributes to organizational behavior and behavioral ethics by identifying cognitive dissonance and the propensity to moral disengage as psychological mechanisms that help explain how interpersonal value conflict becomes behaviorally consequential. While this study did not directly measure insider threat behavior, the results may inform insider risk scholarship by identifying cognitive and moral mechanisms associated with CWB and broader workplace behavioral risk. Implications address leadership, ethics training, and early detection of at-risk behavioral patterns within organizational settings.
