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Behavioral Sciences
Volume 16
Issue 4
10.3390/bs16040477
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Essay

An Intuitive Model of Bystander Responses to Workplace Mistreatment

by
Qiuyue Shao
1,
Ke Zhang
2,* and
Xiaoping Zhao
3
1
School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, Shanghai 200070, China
2
School of Accounting, Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and Finance, Shanghai 201620, China
3
Department of Enterprise Management, Research Institute of Economics and Management, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu 610074, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Behav. Sci. 2026, 16(4), 477; https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16040477
Submission received: 23 September 2025 / Revised: 26 February 2026 / Accepted: 20 March 2026 / Published: 24 March 2026
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Impact of Workplace Harassment on Employee Well-Being)
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Abstract

Our paper presents an intuitive model of bystander intervention to workplace mistreatment. Drawing on the literature on moral intuition, our paper proposes (1) that bystanders match an observed conduct to mistreatment descriptions (the first type of mistreatment prototypes), and (2) that bystanders make intuitive judgments and take immediate interventions when intervention prescriptions (the second type of mistreatment prototypes) exist in their long-term memory. Our paper also argues that bystanders’ intuitive judgments and interventions depend on the accessibility of their mistreatment prototypes, which are formed through learning mechanisms. Our paper contributes to the literature on bystander responses to workplace mistreatment.
Keywords: workplace mistreatment; bystander responses; bystander intervention; moral intuition; mistreatment prototypes workplace mistreatment; bystander responses; bystander intervention; moral intuition; mistreatment prototypes

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MDPI and ACS Style

Shao, Q.; Zhang, K.; Zhao, X. An Intuitive Model of Bystander Responses to Workplace Mistreatment. Behav. Sci. 2026, 16, 477. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16040477

AMA Style

Shao Q, Zhang K, Zhao X. An Intuitive Model of Bystander Responses to Workplace Mistreatment. Behavioral Sciences. 2026; 16(4):477. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16040477

Chicago/Turabian Style

Shao, Qiuyue, Ke Zhang, and Xiaoping Zhao. 2026. "An Intuitive Model of Bystander Responses to Workplace Mistreatment" Behavioral Sciences 16, no. 4: 477. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16040477

APA Style

Shao, Q., Zhang, K., & Zhao, X. (2026). An Intuitive Model of Bystander Responses to Workplace Mistreatment. Behavioral Sciences, 16(4), 477. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16040477

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