European Journal of Personality, Eur. J. Pers.

27: 532544 (2013)

Published online 11 July 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/per.1931

An Exploration of the Dishonest Side of Self-Monitoring: Links to Moral

Disengagement and Unethical Business Decision Making
BABATUNDE OGUNFOWORA1*, JOSHUA S. BOURDAGE2 and BRENDA NGUYEN3
1

Goodman School of Business, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Department of Psychology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
3
Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
2

Abstract: The majority of research on self-monitoring has focused on the positive aspects of this personality trait. The
goal of the present research was to shed some light on the potential negative side of self-monitoring and resulting
consequences in two independent studies. Study 1 demonstrated that, in addition to being higher on Extraversion, high
self-monitors are also more likely to be low on Honesty-Humility, which is characterized by a tendency to be dishonest
and driven by self-gain. Study 2 was designed to investigate the consequences of this dishonest side of self-monitoring
using two previously unexamined outcomes: moral disengagement and unethical business decision making. Results
showed that high self-monitors are more likely to engage in unethical business decision making and that this relationship
is mediated by the propensity to engage in moral disengagement. In addition, these negative effects of self-monitoring
were found to be due to its low Honesty-Humility aspect, rather than its high Extraversion side. Further investigation
showed similar effects for the Other-Directedness and Acting (but not Extraversion) self-monitoring subscales. These
ndings provide valuable insight into previously unexamined negative consequences of self-monitoring and suggest important directions for future research on self-monitoring. Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Key words: self-monitoring; Honesty-Humility; Extraversion; moral disengagement; ethical business decision
making; HEXACO model; personality

Since its initial proposition (Snyder, 1974), the self-monitoring

construct has been a topic of enthusiastic investigation in many
research domains. Self-monitoring refers to the extent to which
an individual monitors the public appearance of the self in
social settings and interpersonal relationships (Snyder, 1987).
High self-monitors1 are attuned to their social environment
and adjust their behaviours in order to control images that they
present to others. Low self-monitors, on the other hand, are
more consistent in their behaviours across contexts and are also
consistent with their attitudes, emotions and dispositions
(Snyder & Gangestad, 1986).
A review of the literature shows strong evidence in support
of the positive effects of high self-monitoring, including higher
emotional intelligence (Tett, Fox, & Wang, 2005), greater nonverbal decoding skills (ability to recognize emotional displays
in others) and behavioural sensitivity to the expectations of
others (see Gangestad & Snyder, 2000, for a review). Within
the workplace context, high self-monitoring has been positively
linked to promotions over a 5-year period (Kilduff & Day,
1994), positive leadership behaviours, perceptions of leader
effectiveness (Day, Schleicher, Unckless, & Hiller, 2002),

*Correspondence to: Babatunde Ogunfowora, Goodman School of Business, Brock University, St Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
E-mail: oogunfow@gmail.com
1
We use the term high self-monitor as an abbreviation to describe individuals who score highly on self-monitoring scales. It is not our intent to use
this term as a diagnostic label.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

leadership emergence (Cronshaw & Ellis, 1991; Ellis, 1988),

greater job involvement (Day et al., 2002) and higher evaluations
on interpersonal aspects of job performance (Barrick, Parks, &
Mount, 2005; Blakely, Andrews, & Fuller, 2003).
Despite these positive effects, however, there appears to be
a somewhat more negative side to self-monitoring. In their
seminal review, Gangestad and Snyder (2000) noted that
although constructs such as self-monitoring may be good
natured and functional in terms of social interaction, there . . .
may also be an essential component in illicit social activities
as well, such as lying, concealing ones true intentions, or
presenting an inauthentic self (p. 530). Indeed, researchers
have found that high self-monitors tend to condone lies when
there is opportunity for self-gain and engage in deception in
romantic relationships (Gangestad & Snyder, 2000; McLeod
& Genereux, 2008). Thus, there is a growing body of
evidence indicating that there may be a more negative side
to self-monitoring. The goal of the present research was to
investigate the personality basis of this negative side and
potential consequences in two independent studies. In the
succeeding discussions, we provide an overview of the
extant theoretical and empirical work on self-monitoring
and how the present research ts within this literature.
Next, we present two empirical studies designed to extend the
literature. In Study 1, we examined the personality correlates
of self-monitoring in order to show the dual aspects of this
constructthat is, its positive (high Extraversion) and
negative (low Honesty-Humility) sides. In Study 2, we
Received 2 August 2012
Revised 25 March 2013, Accepted 1 April 2013

Self-Monitoring and Honesty-Humility

examined the consequences of the proposed negative side of
self-monitoring with respect to the propensity to engage in
moral disengagement and to make unethical business
decisions.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Although Snyder (1974, 1987) initially conceptualized selfmonitoring as uni-dimensional, the past few decades have
witnessed extensive debate about its dimensionality. The majority of this debate stems from evaluations of the psychometric
properties of Snyders Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder, 1974;
Snyder & Gangestad, 1986). According to this body of
research, the Self-Monitoring Scale can be broken down into
three subscales, namely Acting, Extraversion and OtherDirectedness (Lennox & Wolfe, 1984; Snyder & Gangestad,
1986). Acting describes the extent to which the high selfmonitor is capable of playing or assuming the role of a different
persona or character (e.g. I would probably make a good actor
or I nd it hard to imitate the behaviour of other people
Reversed). Other-Directedness is concerned with the extent to
which the individual portrays multiple faades to different
persons and in different contexts (e.g. In different situations
and with different people, I often act like very different persons
and Im not always the person I appear to be). Last, the
Extraversion subscale is composed of sociable and outgoing
behaviours (e.g. At a party, I let others keep the jokes and
stories goingReversed). On the basis of a comprehensive
quantitative review of this literature, Gangestad and Snyder
(2000) reported evidence in support of a two-factor structure,
which they termed Public Performing and Other-Directedness
(see also Briggs & Cheek, 1988; Gangestad & Snyder, 1985).
All three subscales were found to load on the Public Performing
factor, which captures the majority of the variance of the scale.
This factor, named the Self-Monitoring axis, was found to be
very strongly closely associated with the Acting subscale
(Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Last, the Other-Directedness
and Extraversion subscales loaded on the second dimension
(Gangestad & Snyder, 2000).
The prominence of Extraversion in Snyders (1974)
self-monitoring measure led to extensive investigations
into the extent to which self-monitoring and its effects
could be primarily accounted for by trait Extraversion
and other related social traits (e.g. Briggs & Cheek,
1988; John, Cheek, & Klohnen, 1996). Across a number
of studies, Extraversion has emerged as an important correlate of self-monitoring, typically possessing positive relationships in the .30s and .40s (Barrick et al., 2005; Bono
& Vey, 2007; Briggs & Cheek, 1988). Gangestad and
Snyder (2000) acknowledged that Extraversion enjoys a
dominant presence in the Self-Monitoring Scale and is a
nontrivial covariate of the self-monitoring axis. Moreover,
the link between self-monitoring and trait Extraversion
may also be explained by the Acting subscale, which to
some extent requires social skills in order to be successful
(i.e. to be an actor or to imitate the social behaviours
of others). Research evidence, however, indicates that
self-monitoring and its effects cannot be solely explained
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

533

by Extraversion or any other personality trait within the

dominant Big Five factor structure (Barrick et al., 2005;
Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Thus, there appears to be a
distinct aspect to self-monitoring that, according to Gangestad
and Snyder, is informed by phenomena that pertain to variation in predispositions to engage in certain forms of impression
management. . .categories that can best be characterized as
concerning the active construction of public selves designed
to achieve social ends (Gangestad & Snyder, 2000, p. 546).
A review of the emerging literature on broad personality
dimensions suggests that this other aspect of Self-Monitoring
may be better captured under an alternative personality framework known as the HEXACO Personality Model (Ashton &
Lee, 2007; Lee & Ashton, 2005). The HEXACO model proposes that there are six, not ve, broad dimensions of personality, namely: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion,
Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience (Ashton & Lee, 2007). Although there are a few notable
differences between the HEXACO model and the prominent
Big Five Model, the inclusion of Honesty-Humility, the sixth
personality dimension, represents a key departure and signicant advantage of this model (Ashton & Lee, 2007; Lee,
Ogunfowora, & Ashton, 2005). Honesty-Humility is described
by adjectives such as honest, fair, sincere or loyal versus
greedy, conceited, pretentious and sly (Ashton & Lee, 2007).
The negative pole of Honesty-Humility highlights the tendency to be dishonest and driven by self-gain, the acquisition
of material goods and willingness to condone fraudulent acts,
including presenting a faade to gain something from others
(Ashton & Lee, 2007). These descriptors, particularly the
latter, share theoretical similarities with high self-monitoring.
As noted earlier, Gangestad and Snyder (2000) argued that
the Self-Monitoring axis reects a predisposition to engage in
impression management and image management behaviours.
Similarly, individuals who are low on Honesty-Humility have
been shown to engage in impression management and
impression-management-motivated behaviours (Bourdage,
Lee, & Ogunfowora, 2009; Bourdage, Lee, Lee, & Shin,
2012). This suggests a negative link between self-monitoring
and Honesty-Humility. In particular, low Honesty-Humility
should be associated with the Other-Directedness subscale.
This is because they both share a tendency to be disingenuous
in interpersonal relations, specically, with respect to
presenting an inconsistent self to others in order to gain something from them (Ashton & Lee, 2007; Gangestad & Snyder,
2000). Moreover, low Honesty-Humility may also be positively related to the Acting subscale, which to some degree
likely relies on an ability to deceivethat is, to the extent that
Acting entails assuming and convincingly portraying the persona of someone else to observers (Gangestad & Snyder,
2000). Indeed, the previously described associations of high
self-monitoring to the tendency to lie and deceive others
(Gangestad & Snyder, 2000; Mcleod & Genereux, 2008) are
consistent with low levels of Honesty-Humility (Ashton &
Lee, 2007). Not surprising, therefore, researchers have found
a negative link (r = .42) between Honesty-Humility and
self-monitoring measured using Snyders (1974) SelfMonitoring Scale (Ashton & Lee, 2005). More recently,
Grieve (2011) found partial support for this relationship by
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B. Ogunfowora et al.

using a different measure of self-monitoring (Lennox &

Wolfe, 1984). Grieve found that Honesty-Humility was negatively related to the ability to monitor self-presentation
subscale of self-monitoring but not the sensitivity to expressive behaviour of others subscale. Thus, in addition to Extraversion, low Honesty-Humility appears to be an
important personality basis of self-monitoring.
The proposed dual nature of self-monitoring may also
be understood within the context of a prominent theoretical
model in the self-monitoring literatureArkins (1981)
theory of acquisitive and protective self-presentation
styles. According to this theory, the way people present
themselves to the world can be captured by two motivational processes. Acquisitive self-monitoring is concerned
with self-presentation driven by a desire for social gain
and approval (Arkin, 1981; Wolfe, Lennox, & Cutler,
1986). This corresponds to the desire of high selfmonitors to get ahead by actively managing how they
are perceived by others in an effort to garner social success
and rewards (Rauthmann, 2011). This is also conceptually
similar to low Honesty-Humility, which is driven by the
acquisition of material goods and willingness to condone
fraudulent acts for self-gain (Ashton & Lee, 2007).
Honesty-Humility also appears to share some conceptual
links with protective self-monitoring. Ashton and Lee
(2007) suggested that Honesty-Humility can be theoretically interpreted as altruism-drivena motive that pushes
one who is high on Honesty-Humility to deal genuinely
with others even when one might exploit them without
suffering retaliation (p. 156). In contrast, the individual
who is low on Honesty-Humility is driven by selsh motives. Protective self-monitoring also appears to have an
underlying self-serving motive; that is, to the extent that
the high protective self-monitor is motivated to get along
with others only to protect the self from social rejection
(Arkin, 1981; Wolfe et al., 1986).
In support of these postulations, Rauthmann (2011) recently
demonstrated that the protective and acquisitive aspects of selfmonitoring are both related to the so-called Dark Triad
narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism (Paulhus &
Williams, 2002)a group of traits that have in common a tendency to manipulate and exploit others for the pursuit of selsh
gains. Interestingly, Lee and Ashton (2005) found that HonestyHumility relates substantially with each of the Dark Triad traits,
with correlations ranging from .53 (Machiavellianism) to
.72 (psychopathy). More recently, Lee, Ashton, Wiltshire,
Bourdage, Visser, and Gallucci (2012) demonstrated that the
core variance of the Dark Triad variables can be accounted
for by low Honesty-Humility.
The positive association of self-monitoring with Extraversion may also be understood in terms of the protective and acquisitive self-presentation styles. High protective self-monitors
attempt to minimize the negative repercussions of social rejection by putting up faades in social situations in order to facilitate acceptance. They are likely to be successful at this to the
extent that they possess extraverted qualities (i.e. outgoing,
talkative, energetic, and enthusiastic; Costa & McCrae, 1991)
that enable them to acutely manoeuvre social situations in order to stand out and incur social approval (rather than
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

rejection). Moreover, Rauthmann (2011) has proposed that

the link with Extraversion can also be understood from an acquisitive perspective to the extent that Extraversion results in
feelings of social reward and success when the high selfmonitor effectively presents a favourable image of himself or
herself in social situations.
In sum, extant theoretical and empirical research to date
strongly indicates that Extraversion and low Honesty-Humility
are important personality bases of self-monitoring. A deeper understanding of this dual nature of self-monitoring is important
for a number of practical reasons. Although self-monitoring is
positively related to many indicators of success in life, the
preliminary evidence showing a negative co-variation with
Honesty-Humility is a signicant cause for concern. This is
because research indicates that low levels of Honesty-Humility
are associated with delinquency and antisocial behaviours
(Dunlop, Morrison, Koenig, & Silcox, 2012; Lee, Ashton, &
Shin, 2005), sexual promiscuity and sexual harassment (Ashton
& Lee, 2008; Bourdage, Lee, Ashton, & Perry, 2007; Lee,
Gizzarone, & Ashton, 2003), counterproductive work behaviours (Lee, Ashton, & De Vries, 2005; Marcus, Lee, & Ashton,
2007) and unethical business decision making (Lee, Ashton,
Morrison, Cordery, & Dunlop, 2008). This suggests that high
self-monitoring may also be associated with these negative outcomes. To date, however, there have been no further investigations into the low Honesty-Humility aspect of self-monitoring
following Ashton and Lees (2005) initial research. The issue
of the dual nature of self-monitoring was not the focus of past
research (Ashton & Lee, 2005; Grieve, 2011) and, as such, has
received minimal attention to date.
The present research
The present multi-study research sought to shed further light
on the proposed dual aspect of self-monitoring. Study 1 was
designed to test the proposition that Extraversion and
Honesty-Humility are the two most important broad personality factors associated with self-monitoring. This investigation
was conducted in two separate samples and contexts. Study 2
was designed to investigate the consequences of the proposed
dual nature of self-monitoring using two previously
unexamined outcomes: moral disengagement and ethical business decision making.

STUDY 1
We began our investigation by exploring the most important
broad personality correlates of self-monitoring in an attempt
to corroborate and extend Lee and Ashtons (2005) initial
ndings. These relationships were tested using multiple
sources (self-reports and peer reports) of self-monitoring
and HEXACO personality traits in an undergraduate student
sample. At a general level, demonstrating that the ndings
converge across multiple methods of measurement of the
same traits is pertinent for illustrating the robustness of the
proposed dual nature of self-monitoring (Campbell & Fiske,
1959; Oh, Wang, & Mount, 2011). This is in line with
Hofstees (1994) recommendation that researchers provide
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Self-Monitoring and Honesty-Humility

evidence beyond self-reports when attempting to establish
relationships among personality constructs. Moreover, sole
reliance on self-reports may limit the robustness of conclusions, as observer reports of personality may also capture
important unique variance in understanding the relationship
among constructs (Oh, Lee, Ashton, & De Vries, 2011).
Thus, we employed both self-ratings and observer ratings
in the rst sample. In line with past research, we expect
that Honesty-Humility and Extraversion will demonstrate the
strongest and most consistent associations with self-monitoring
across rating sources.
Hypothesis 1: Among the major personality dimensions, Extraversion and Honesty-Humility will emerge as the strongest and
most consistent correlates of self-monitoring.

We further tested the proposed relationships between

self-monitoring, Extraversion and Honesty-Humility in an
employment context. This allowed for a test of the generalizability of the proposed relationships in a sample of adults in
an employment setting. Although only self-reports were
available, this is important because a substantive body of
research on self-monitoring has been conducted in the work
domain (e.g. Barrick et al., 2005; Blakely et al., 2003; Bono
& Vey, 2007; Day et al., 2002; Kilduff & Day, 1994).

Method
Participants and procedure
Sample 1. The rst sample consisted of a total of 258
undergraduate students from a mid-sized Canadian university.
Of these, 65% were female, and the average age was
20.63 years (SD = 3.96). Participants arrived in dyads, with
close friends attending together. Each person completed a
self-report questionnaire and a peer-report questionnaire. In
order to help participants feel comfortable answering honestly,
we ensured that participants sat at separate tables, and if this
was not possible, they were separated by a large divider. The
participants were awarded research credits or paid $20 for
participating in the study.
The peers consisted of 63% female participants, with an
average age of 20.69 years (SD = 4.25). Participants
reported knowing their peers an average of 4.75 years
(SD = 4.31), and this corresponded with the estimates provided by the peers. We also obtained subjective ratings
of how well participants reported knowing each other
using a 10-point rating scale and found an average rating
of 7.75 (SD = 1.59).
Sample 2. Participants from the second sample were
employees in the Services department of a not-for-prot
human services organization in Canada. The total organization
size was 358 employees, 226 of whom worked in the Services
department. One hundred and ten Services employees
participated in the study, indicating a response rate of about
49%. The average age of respondents was 41.52 years
(SD = 11.19). Approximately 78% were women, and the
average tenure with the organization of 38.26 months
(SD = 60.35 months). The present data were collected as part
of a larger validation study at the organization. The authors
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

535

attended team meetings during which employees were

asked to complete a number of questionnaires that included
personality scales.

Measures
Personality. In both samples, personality was measured
using the HEXACO Personality Inventory Revised
(HEXACO PI-R; Lee & Ashton, 2004). This scale assesses
six personality factors: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness and
Openness to Experience. The items are scored on a 5-point
scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).
In Sample 1, the 100-item HEXACO PI-R was administered, and self-reports and peer reports were obtained. The
internal consistency reliabilities for the self-report scales
were acceptable: Honesty-Humility (a = .80), Emotionality
(a = .83), Extraversion (a = .85), Agreeableness (a = .85),
Conscientiousness (a = .82) and Openness to Experience
(a = .82). The reliability estimates for the peer-report scales
were also acceptable: Honesty-Humility (a = .85), Emotionality (a = .88), Extraversion (a = .87), Agreeableness (a = .89),
Conscientiousness (a = .86) and Openness to Experience
(a = .84). In Sample 2, because of pressures from management
to keep the survey short, a limited number of items were selected to measure each personality trait. Honesty-Humility
was assessed using 12 items (a = .74) from the HEXACO Fairness, Sincerity and Modesty subscales, whereas Extraversion
was assessed using eight items (a = .66) obtained from the
HEXACO Liveliness and Social Boldness subscales.
Self-monitoring. In Sample 1, self-monitoring was assessed
using self-reports and peer reports on the 18-item SelfMonitoring Scale (Snyder & Gangestad, 1986). Responses
were assessed on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree
to 5 = strongly agree). The internal consistency
reliabilities for the self-reports and peer-report measures
were .73 and .72, respectively. We also calculated
scores for the three subscales of Acting, Extraversion
and Other-Directedness. The reliability estimates (selfreports and peer reports, respectively) were as follows:
Acting (a = .74; .67), Extraversion (a = .63; .65) and
Other-directedness (a = .45; .54) subscales. These somewhat
lower values are quite similar to those reported in past
research. For instance, Hoyle and Lennoxs (1991)
comprehensive study found reliability estimates of .70
for the total 18-item self-report scale, and .64, .64 and
.46 for the Acting, Extraversion and Other-Directedness
subscales, respectively.
In Sample 2, self-monitoring was assessed using selfreports on the 10-item Self-Monitoring Scale from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg et al., 2006).
Responses were assessed on a 5-point Likert scale
(1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The obtained
reliability of this measure was .79. This IPIP scale (Goldberg et al., 2006) was developed to closely reect selfmonitoring as measured by Snyder (1974), but was not
designed to measure the three subscales.
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B. Ogunfowora et al.

Results
The means, standard deviations and correlations among
study variables can be found in Table 1. In examining the
correlations among self-ratings and peer ratings of personality and self-monitoring, we used a multi-trait-multi-method
approach (Campbell & Fiske, 1959), looking at the correlations between the following: (i) self-rated HEXACO traits
and self-rated self-monitoring; (ii) self-rated HEXACO
traits and peer-rated self-monitoring; (iii) peer-rated
HEXACO traits and self-rated self-monitoring; and (iv)
peer-rated HEXACO traits and peer-rated self-monitoring.2
In terms of overall self-monitoring, across all four sets of correlations, the links between self-monitoring, Extraversion and
Honesty-Humility were replicated. Consistent with past research,
Extraversion was strongly and signicantly correlated with selfmonitoring across sources (range = .34 to .47; average r = .40).3
Moreover, as expected, Honesty-Humility emerged as a statistically signicant correlate of self-monitoring across sources
(range = .15 to .42; average r = .30). In comparison, openness to experiencethe next trait most consistently related to
self-monitoringdemonstrated relatively modest associations
(range = .15 to .27; average r = .19). All other traits demonstrated
weak and/or inconsistent associations with self-monitoring across
source (the next strongest average correlation was Agreeableness,
r = .15). Taken together, the results obtained from both samples
provide strong support for hypothesis 1. Last, we found a
moderate correlation of .42 between self-ratings and peer-ratings
of self-monitoring, indicating that students can judge the selfmonitoring of their peers to some extent.
Table 1 also shows the correlations with the self-monitoring
subscales. Across sources, Honesty-Humility was moderately
correlated with Other-directedness (range = .11 to .54, average r = .31) and Acting (range = .16 to .31, average
r = .24) but relatively weaker with the Extraversion subscale
(range = .01 to .16, average r = .09). In contrast, Extraversion was most strongly associated with the Extraversion
subscale (range = .40 to .64, average r = .54), moderately with
Acting (range = .31 to .42, average r = .37) and weakly with
Other-Directedness (range = .21 to .03, average r = .09).
The means, standard deviations and inter-correlations
among the study variables for the adult work sample are
2
We also tested the extent to which the cross-source correlations were affected by the length of time that participants had known each other and/or
how well they reported knowing each other. The results showed that across
all sets of analyses, the length of time or how well known generally did not
signicantly moderate the relationships between (i) self-monitoring and
Honesty-Humility, (ii) self-monitoring and Extraversion and (iii) selfreport self-monitoring and peer-report self-monitoring. The only exception
was that the relationship between self-ratings of self-monitoring and peerratings of Extraversion was moderated by length of time known (but not
how well known): b = .04, t = 2.15, p < .05, R2 = .02. This relationship
was stronger for those who had known their peers for a longer periodthat
is, one standard deviation above the mean (b = .62, p < .01)versus a
shorter (one standard deviation below the mean) duration (b = .25, p < .05).
However, given that this is the only relationship observed out of 10 tested,
we do not place emphasis on this result because of the potential of capitalizing on chance.
3
For all of the average correlations reported for Study 1, at the suggestion
of a reviewer, averages were computed by transforming each correlation
using Fishers z-transformation, nding the average and then reversing the
transformation for the new mean. This approach is described in detail by
Thorndike (2007).

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

presented at the bottom of Table 1. The results show that

overall self-monitoring is signicantly correlated with Extraversion (r = .42, p < .001) and Honesty-Humility (r = .38,
p < .001). These results replicate the pattern of correlations
obtained in the student sample in an employment context.
Brief discussion
The results of Study 1 provide support for the dual nature of selfmonitoring. Our results corroborated past ndings that have
found the primary personality correlate of self-monitoring to
be Extraversion. The magnitude of this correlation across different sources was similar to that reported in previous studies
(Barrick et al., 2005; Bono & Vey, 2007; Briggs & Cheek,
1988). Study 1 also demonstrated that, across different sources,
high self-monitoring is also associated with low HonestyHumility. Moreover, we demonstrate that these ndings generalized to an employed adult sample. Past research has shown
that high self-monitors may be more prone towards engaging
in deceit, manipulation and status-driven motivation (e.g.
Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Similarly, low Honesty-Humility
has at its core the tendency to be duplicitous and statusoriented, and correlates highly with the Dark Triad personality
traits (Lee & Ashton, 2005; Lee et al., 2012). The fact that the
negative association between these two traits generalized across
both self-reports and peer-reports indicates that these correlations are not solely due to same source effects. As such, these
features strengthen our condence in the conclusions drawn.
However, we do note that a possible limitation of our study design is that participants were allowed to choose which of their
friends to bring along to the study. This may have introduced
some degree of selection bias as participants may have invited
only good friends that are more likely to endorse a view of the
individual that is similar to the participants self-views.4
At the facet level, Honesty-Humility appears to be moderately associated with Other-Directedness and, to a slightly
lesser degree, the Acting subscale of the Self-Monitoring
Scale. The stronger association with the OtherDirectedness subscale is in line with Grieves (2011) nding
that Honesty-Humility was most strongly associated with
the component of Lennox and Wolfes (1984) selfmonitoring measure that pertains to ones ability to modify
behaviour in response to social cues (rather than a sensitivity
or ability to detect these cues). The association with the
Extraversion subscale was much smaller in comparison. In
contrast, HEXACO Extraversion was most strongly associated with the Extraversion subscale, followed by the Acting
subscale. The observed pattern of correlations therefore suggests that Honesty-Humility is most closely associated with
Other-Directedness; HEXACO Extraversion is most aligned
with the Extraversion subscale; and both Honesty-Humility
and Extraversion are implicated in the Acting subscale.
These differential patterns of relationships indicate that it
may useful to explore the consequences of the dual nature
of the self-monitoring construct by using the subscales of
the Self-Monitoring Scale, in addition to analyses using the
overall scale.
4

We thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing this issue to our attention.

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537

Table 1. Means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables in Study 1 (student sample and adult working sample)
Self-report self-monitoring
M
Student sample
M
SD
HEXACO
Self-report
Honesty-Humility
Emotionality
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Openness
Peer-report
Honesty-Humility
Emotionality
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Openness
Peer-report
SM Total
Acting
Other-D
Extra
Adult work sample
Self-report
SM Total
Honesty-Humility
Extraversion

SD

SM Total
3.04
.47

Acting
2.91
.70

Other-D
2.97
.58

Peer-report self-monitoring
Extra
3.31
.61

SM Total
2.93
.44

Acting
2.82
.57

Other-D
2.75
.62

Extra
3.27
.66

3.19
3.46
3.50
2.92
3.49
3.35

0.57
0.59
0.55
0.59
0.54
0.61

.35**
.09
.41**
.18**
.03
.27**

.21**
.15**
.40**
.16**
.05
.32**

.42**
.08
.21**
.16**
.10
.03

.16**
.09
.62**
.03
.14*
.14*

.15*
.03
.38**
.05
.01
.15*

.16**
.05
.35**
.05
.02
.22**

.11*
.00
.03
.02
.05
.01

.01
.02
.40**
.03
.04
.04

3.19
3.31
3.52
3.10
3.49
3.08

0.60
0.63
0.57
0.65
0.57
0.60

.27**
.09
.34**
.19**
.09
.15*

.26**
.13*
.31**
.22**
.16*
.18**

.12*
.01
.07
.00
.06
.04

.13*
.02
.45**
.11
.01
.09

.42**
.02
.47**
.17**
.11
.17**

.31**
.05
.42**
.13
.09
.23**

.54**
.11
.11
.17**
.26**
.05

.05
.00
.64**
.06
.10
.03

.42**
.45**
.14*
.23**

.42**
.48**
.13*
.21**

.03
.03
.09
.06

.34**
.33**
.03
.33**

2.47
4.05
3.52

0.58
0.51
0.52

.38***
.42***

Note: Student sample: N = 258; adult work sample: N = 110. The mean and standard deviation values in parentheses are those obtained for the International
Personality Item Pool Self-Monitoring Scale used in the adult work sample. Other-D, Other-Directedness; Extra, Extraversion; SM, Self-Monitoring; SM Total,
total Self-Monitoring Scale score. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001. One-tailed.

STUDY 2
Study 1 established that self-monitoring can be understood in
terms of high Extraversion and low Honesty-Humility, at
least among broad personality dimensions. Building on this
research, an important line of inquiry that warrants further attention pertains to the potential implications of the low
Honesty-Humility correlate of self-monitoring. To this end,
Study 2 was designed to test the effects of self-monitoring
on outcomes that are likely to be the result of this dishonest
side. Specically, we examined the extent to which selfmonitoring relates to unethical business decision making,
as well as the potential mediating effect of moral disengagement (Bandura, 1986) in understanding this association.
Last, we tested the proposition that these relationships can
be explained primarily by low Honesty-Humility but not
high Extraversion.
Self-monitoring and unethical decision making
A potential negative consequence of the low HonestyHumility aspect of self-monitoring is the propensity to make
unethical business decisions. Gangestad & Snyder (2000)
have suggested that high self-monitoring is driven in part
by the motivation for self-gain and the need to acquire social
status and success. This is also in line with the theoretical
interpretation of acquisitive self-monitoring, which highlights a desire for social gain that is driven by a get ahead
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

mentality (Wolfe et al., 1986). We propose that such a

motive may increase the probability that a high selfmonitor will make unethical business decisions, particularly
those judged to benet the self and which allows the high
self-monitor to get ahead in life. A similar drive for selfgain and social status is also inherent in low HonestyHumility. Not surprisingly, research studies have found a
positive association between low Honesty-Humility and
unethical business decision making (e.g. Lee et al., 2008;
Perugini & Leone, 2009; Van Gelder & De Vries, 2012). A
high self-monitor may further reason that an unethical decision that brings about nancial success may help to elevate
his or her social status and ultimately foster social acceptance
rather than rejection by others (i.e. protective selfmonitoring). These arguments indirectly suggest that high
self-monitors may be likely to make unethical business
decisions. Moreover, self-monitoring has also been linked
to discrete forms of unethical intentions, such as willingness to condoning lies and a tendency to deceive and
manipulate others (Grieve, 2011; Mcleod & Genereux,
2008; Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). Hence, we propose that
self-monitoring will be associated with unethical business
decision making.
Hypothesis 2: Self-monitoring will be positively related to
unethical decision making.
Eur. J. Pers. 27: 532544 (2013)
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538

B. Ogunfowora et al.

The mediating effects of moral disengagement

One potential explanation for the proposed link between
self-monitoring and unethical decision making may be the
propensity to morally disengage (Bandura, 1986). Bandura
(1986) developed the concept of moral disengagement to
explain how people come to engage in detrimental conducts
that are otherwise incongruent with their moral standards.
Social cognitive theory proposes that self-management
of detrimental conducts occur through cognitive, selfregulatory mechanisms (Bandura, 1999). According to
Bandura and colleagues, people evade self-imposed
sanctions for engaging in negative conducts by using a number of sociocognitive manoeuvres that deactivate normal
self-regulatory processes, thereby disengaging their moral
standards from detrimental conduct (Bandura, Caprara,
Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, & Regalia, 2001). Bandura (1999)
has described eight such mechanisms of moral disengagement that ultimately enable a person to engage in detrimental
conduct with little guilt and self-censure. They include
moral justication (cognitively misconstruing harm to
others so as to seem morally justiable), euphemistic
labelling (using morally neutral diction to make unethical
conduct seem less threatening), advantageous comparison
(making an unethical conduct seem less harmful by comparing it with more injurious unethical actions), displacement of
responsibility (passing culpability for ones unethical
conduct to the directives of authority gures), diffusion of
responsibility (abating personal liability for unethical
conduct when such actions are taken as part of a larger group
or collective), disregarding or distorting the consequences
(minimizing, forgetting or even actively discrediting
evidence of harm caused to others), dehumanization
(sanctioning immoral acts by casting victims as subhuman
or lacking human qualities) and attribution of blame
(blaming the recipients of harmful behaviours for instigating
such actions) (Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli,
1996; Detert, Trevio, & Sweitzer, 2008).
Detert et al. (2008) recently argued that moral disengagement mechanisms also disassociate contemplated
actions from the guilt or self-censure that would otherwise
prevent it (p. 378). In particular, moral disengagement
mechanisms may operate to minimize guilt feelings associated with thinking about engaging in unethical behaviours.
In support of this, Detert et al. found that moral disengagement was positively related to unethical decision making.
We propose that moral disengagement can help to explain
the relationship between self-monitoring and unethical
decision making. The high self-monitor who contemplates
an unethical course of action in order to gain social success
may eliminate any guilt or self-censure through moral
disengagement mechanisms. For instance, the high selfmonitor may justify the need to make an unethical business
decision by reasoning that the resulting nancial success
will help to achieve a favourable public image, which
is necessary in order to get ahead in an otherwise
difcult and harsh world (i.e. serving the acquisitive selfmonitoring motive). The high self-monitor may also reason
that the resulting nancial success and social status will
bring about acceptance from others who may otherwise
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

reject him or her from their social circles (i.e. serving the
protective self-monitoring motive). These are examples of
the moral justication mechanism (for instance, a sample
moral justication item is as follows: Playing dirty is
sometimes necessary in order to achieve noble ends;
Moore, Detert, Trevio, Baker, & Mayer, 2012). As another
example, the high self-monitor may engage in euphemistic
language strategies to make their unethical intentions sound
less threatening. For instance, making unethical decisions
that result in social or nancial gain may be construed as
being politically savvy or playing the game rather than
unethical per se.
Hypothesis 3: The relationship between self-monitoring and
unethical decision making will be mediated by moral
disengagement.

Last, in light of the preceding arguments, we posit that

the negative relations of self-monitoring to unethical decision
making, and the potential mediating effects of moral disengagement, will be explained by its low Honesty-Humility
side but not the extraverted side.
Hypothesis 4: The link between self-monitoring and unethical
decision making, and through moral disengagement, will be
explained by Honesty-Humility but not Extraversion.

Method
Participants and procedure
A total of 215 undergraduate Canadian students enrolled in
multiple sections of an introductory business course in organizational behaviour were recruited as part of a larger project
on individual and team characteristics. About 48% of respondents were female, and the average age was 21.8 years old
(SD = 3.95). Students were randomly assigned into teams of
four to six members and worked on a major class project that
accounted for 40% of their nal class grade. At the start of
the semester, students were invited to voluntarily participate
in a multi-wave research study (at approximately 1-month
intervals) in exchange for partial course credits. Personality
questionnaires were administered at the start of the semester
(time 1), followed by the moral disengagement measure at
time 2. At time 3, participants completed the ethical business
decision-making scale.
Measures
Personality. As in Study 1, Honesty-Humility and
Extraversion were measured using the 100-item version of the
HEXACO PI (Lee & Ashton, 2004). The observed internal
consistency reliabilities were .82 and .79 for Honesty-Humility
and Extraversion, respectively.
Self-monitoring. Self-monitoring was assessed again using
the 18-item Self-Monitoring Scale (Snyder & Gangestad,
1986)see the Method section in Study 1. The reliability
of the total Self-Monitoring Scale was .74; and for the
Eur. J. Pers. 27: 532544 (2013)
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Self-Monitoring and Honesty-Humility

Acting, Extraversion and Other-Directedness subscales, the
reliabilities were .69, .49 and .61, respectively.
Moral disengagement. Moral disengagement was measured
using the modied version by Detert et al. (2008) of the 32item scale originally developed by Bandura et al. (1996) for
use with children and adolescents. This scale was modied
for use with an older population. The resulting 24-item
scale assesses the eight subcomponents of moral
disengagement and was shown to possess acceptable
overall scale reliability (a = .87) and strong initial construct
and predictive validity evidence (Detert et al., 2008).
Responses to the questions were made on a 5-point Likert
scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly
agree). Interested readers may refer to Detert et al. for a
complete list of items in this scale.
Ethical decision making. Participants completed a revised
version of the Business Ethical Decision Making Dilemma
scale (Lee et al., 2008). This scale contains 10 questions
that require participants to estimate how likely (1 = very
unlikely to 4 = very likely) they are to choose a course of
action that would yield personal or organizational prots,
even though it may potentially cause harm to other
individuals or to society at large (Lee et al., 2008). The
scale was scored such that high scores indicated a higher
likelihood to make unethical decisions. The reliability of
this measure was .79.
Analyses
The hypotheses were tested using the PROCESS procedure
in SPSS (Hayes, 2013). PROCESS incorporates traditional
regression analysis tests (Hypotheses 12), as well as
bootstrapping methodologies for testing indirect effects
(Hypotheses 34). In contrast to traditional signicance testing, mediation is supported to the extent that the condence
interval (CI) around the estimated mediated effect does not
contain zero (Preacher, Rucker, & Hayes, 2007). In the
present study, 95% bias-corrected CIs were calculated on
the basis of 10 000 bootstrapped samples. Hypothesis 4 was
tested using two models. In the rst model, Extraversion
was entered as a control variable in the model testing the
indirect effects of self-monitoring on unethical decision making through moral disengagement. A second model was then
specied with Honesty-Humility as the control. This allowed

539

us to determine which of the two personality traits was

responsible for the observed effects.

Results
Table 2 shows the means, standard deviations and intercorrelations among the study variables. The bivariate correlations among the hypothesized variables were generally in the
predicted direction and were statistically signicant. Consistent
with the results from Study 1, the two strongest correlates of
overall self-monitoring were Extraversion, r = .42, p < .01, and
Honesty-Humility, r = .38, p < .01. In addition, similar to
Study 1, we found that Honesty-Humility was moderately negatively related to the Other-Directedness subscale, r = .32,
p < .001, but weakly to the Extraversion subscale, r = .15,
p < .05, whereas HEXACO Extraversion was strongly and
positively related to the Extraversion self-monitoring subscale,
r = .62,
p < .001, but weakly to the Other-Directedness
subscale, r = .11, p > .05. Both Extraversion, r = .39, p < .001,
and Honesty-Humility, r = .31, p < .001, were related to the
Acting subscale. These trends clearly replicate the ndings from
Study 1. In support of our hypothesized relationships, selfmonitoring positively correlated with moral disengagement,
r = .19, p < .01, and unethical decision making, r = .26, p < .01,
providing initial support for Hypotheses 1 and 2. The relationship between moral disengagement and unethical decision
making was moderate and signicant, r = .47, p < .01.
Table 3 provides the results obtained from the regression
and bootstrapping analyses. The regression results showed
that overall self-monitoring was positively related to moral
disengagement, b = .15, p < .05, providing support for
Hypothesis 1. In addition, overall self-monitoring had both
a direct positive effect on unethical business decision making, b = .21, p < .01, and an indirect effect through moral
disengagement, r = 0.08 (CI = 0.002 to 0.16). Hence,
Hypothesis 2 and 3 were supported. In order to test Hypothesis 4, the proposed mediation was tested controlling for
HEXACO Extraversion. The results showed that selfmonitoring retained a signicant direct effect on unethical
decision making, b = .17, p < .05, as well as an indirect effect
through moral disengagement, r = 0.13, CI = 0.05 to 0.23.
This indicates that the direct and indirect effects of selfmonitoring on unethical business decision making cannot
be explained by HEXACO Extraversion. These analyses

Table 2. Means, standard deviations and correlations among the study variables (Study 2)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Honesty-Humility
Extraversion
Moral disengagement
Unethical DM
SM Acting
SM Other-Direct
SM Extraversion
SM Total

Mean

SD

3.25
3.51
2.22
1.94
2.91
2.95
3.32
3.03

0.57
0.45
0.40
0.49
0.63
0.65
0.56
0.45

1
.12
.40**
.47**
.31**
.32**
.15*
.38**

.09
.12
.39**
.11
.62**
.42**

.47**
.19**
.22**
.06
.19**

.21**
.15*
.21**
.26**

.25**
.41**
.87**

.04
.58**

.62**

Note: N = 215. SM, Self-monitoring; SM Total, total Self-Monitoring Scale score; Other Direct, Other-Directedness; Unethical DM, Unethical business decision
making. *p < .05; **p < .01.
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Eur. J. Pers. 27: 532544 (2013)

DOI: 10.1002/per

540

B. Ogunfowora et al.

Table 3. Direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring on unethical business decision making (Study 2)
Moral disengagement
b

SE

Unethical business decision making

b

SE

Model 1: The direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring

Self-monitoring
.15*
0.07
.21**
0.07
Moral disengagement

.55***
0.08
.03*
R2
Bootstrap results
Mediator: Moral disengagement
Model 2: The direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring: Controlling for Extraversion
Self-monitoring
.22**
0.07
.17*
0.08
Extraversion
.20**
0.07
.12
0.08
Moral disengagement

.58***
0.08
.07**
R2
Bootstrap results
Mediator: Moral disengagement
Model 3: The direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring: Controlling for Honesty-Humility
Self-monitoring
.01
0.06
.11
0.07
Honesty-Humility
.29***
0.05
.26***
0.06
Moral disengagement

.42***
0.08
.17***
R2
Bootstrap results
Mediator: Moral disengagement

Low CI

High CI

0.08

0.002

0.16

0.13

0.05

0.23

.27***

.28***

.33***
0.01

0.07

0.08

Note: N = 183. r represents the mediation effect. CI, condence interval (95% bias-corrected and accelerated) based on 10,000 bootstrap samples. Boldface type
highlights a signicant effect as determined by the exclusion of zero from the 95% CI. *p < .05; **p < .01, ***p < .001.

were repeated with Honesty-Humility as the control variable.

The results showed that self-monitoring no longer demonstrated a direct effect on unethical decision making, b = .11,
p > .05, nor did it have an indirect effect through moral
disengagement, r = 0.01, CI = 0.07 to 0.08. These results
suggest that the direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring
on unethical business decision making can be explained by
the low Honesty-Humility aspect of self-monitoring.
The aforementioned analyses were repeated for each of the
self-monitoring subscales. The Acting, Other-Directedness
and Extraversion aspects of self-monitoring were all positively
correlated with unethical business decision making, rs = .21,
.15 and .21, ps < .05, respectively. However, Acting, r = .19, p
.01, and Other-Directedness, r = .22, p < .01, were related to
moral disengagement but not Extraversion, r = .06, p > .05.
The direct and indirect effects of these subscales on unethical
decision making were also tested. The results showed that
moral disengagement mediated the effects of OtherDirectedness, r = 0.07, CI = 0.02 to 0.13, and Acting,
r = 0.06, CI = 0.01 to 0.11, on unethical business decision
making; this mediation effect was, however, not supported
for the Extraversion subscale, r = 0.07, CI = 0.26 to 0.09.
In these analyses, Acting, b = .11, p < .05, and Extraversion,
b = .20, p < .01, also demonstrated direct effects on unethical
decision making, but not Other-Directedness, b = .05, p > .05.
This suggests that the effect of Other-Directedness (but not the
other subscales) on unethical decision making occurs primarily
through moral disengagement.
Similar to the results obtained for the overall SelfMonitoring Scale, the direct and indirect effects of OtherDirectedness and Acting on unethical business decision
making through moral disengagement remained unchanged
after controlling for HEXACO Extraversion. However,
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

these effects were no longer supported after controlling for

Honesty-Humility. In contrast, the Extraversion subscale
retained a direct positive effect (b = .16, p < .01) on
unethical business decision making, after controlling for
Honesty-Humility (even though there was no support for
an indirect effect through moral disengagement). This suggests that the Extraversion subscale shares a portion of its
variance with unethical business decision making that cannot be explained by low Honesty-Humility.
Brief discussion
Research studies have found that self-monitoring relates to a
number of positive outcomes (e.g. Day et al., 2002;
Gangestad & Snyder, 2000). In comparison, fewer studies
have examined the potential detrimental aspects of this construct. In light of the evidence from Study 1 indicating that
self-monitoring has a low Honesty-Humility side, Study 2
was carried out to investigate the potential repercussions of
this association. The results demonstrated that high selfmonitors are more likely to make unethical business
decisions. We also found that the tendency to use moral
disengagement mechanisms as a way of minimizing feelings
of guilt associated with unethical decisions is one explanation for the link between self-monitoring and unethical decision making. To date, no research has linked self-monitoring
to these important ethics-related consequences. Last, the
results supported our thesis that these negative, ethicsrelated outcomes can be explained by the low HonestyHumility correlate of self-monitoring, rather than its Extraversion correlate. In other words, low Honesty-Humility
is pertinent to understanding the extent to which high
Eur. J. Pers. 27: 532544 (2013)
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Self-Monitoring and Honesty-Humility

self-monitors engage in morally questionable cognitive
processes and decisions.5
Further investigations into the self-monitoring subscales
provided additional support for our propositions. The results
revealed similar mediatory effects of moral disengagement
on the links between Acting and Other-Directedness and
unethical business decision making. This was, however, not
the case for the Extraversion subscale. Although the Extraversion subscale was related to unethical decision making,
most likely because of its shared variance with the other
components of self-monitoring, the use of moral disengagement tactics may be more readily attributable to those behaviours that fall within the Acting and Other-Directedness
domain. Specically, compared with the Extraversion
subscale, the Acting and Other-Directedness behaviours
may be more closely associated with a tendency towards
deception through image control (particularly OtherDirectedness) and, as such, may be more likely serviced by
moral disengagement tactics. It is therefore not surprising
that low Honesty-Humility was again implicated in
explaining the links between these self-monitoring subscales
and unethical business decision making through moral
disengagement. In sum, analyses of the self-monitoring
subscales revealed differential patterns of relationships and
support the notion that these subscales should be investigated
independently. However, we encourage readers to exercise
caution in the interpretation of these ndings given the lower
levels of reliability associated with these subscales. This
issue is not unique to the present study, however, as past
studies have found similarly low reliabilities for these
subscales (e.g. Hoyle & Lennox, 1991).

GENERAL DISCUSSION
The present multi-study research was designed to shed light
on the dual nature of the self-monitoring construct. On the
basis of past research, we proposed that self-monitoring relates primarily and most consistently to two important major
personality dimensions: Extraversion and (low) HonestyHumility.6 In light of the extensive research that has been
5

As noted by a reviewer, it is also possible that the relationship between selfmonitoring and these negative outcomes is moderated by an individuals
level of Honesty-Humility (or Extraversion). We however found no empirical support for the moderating effects of Honesty-Humility or Extraversion
on the relationships between self-monitoring (or its subscales) and unethical
business decision making and moral disengagement. We also tested a more
comprehensive moderated mediation model (using PROCESS) where the direct and indirect effects of self-monitoring on unethical decision making,
through moral disengagement, were conditional on the Honesty-Humility
(or Extraversion) levels of the participants. Again, the results did not yield
support for these models.
6
At the suggestion of a reviewer, we investigated whether investigating
HEXACO personality factors at the facet level in association with selfmonitoring could give any further insight as to the nature of these relationships. Across six sets of correlations (four within Study 1 Sample 1, one
within Study 1 Sample 2, and one for the Study 2 Sample), facet level analyses indicated that all four H-H facets related similarly to self-monitoring.
On the other hand, whereas all Extraversion facets had moderate relationships with self-monitoring, the facet of Social Boldness (which assesses
ones comfort or condence within a variety of social situations) had the
consistently strongest relationship with self-monitoring.

Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

541

conducted on Extraversion as a correlate of self-monitoring,

this paper sought to establish the consequences of the low
Honesty-Humility side of self-monitoring. A number of
important ndings emerged from this investigation. First,
across multiple samples, we found consistent evidence that
Extraversion was the strongest correlate of self-monitoring
(as measured by the 18-item Self-Monitoring Scale;
Snyder & Gangestad, 1986), followed closely by low
Honesty-Humility. This association generalized across different rating sources and different samples, including an
adult work sample. These ndings replicate Ashton and
Lees (2005) initial observation of a negative association
between Honesty-Humility and self-monitoring and
provide strong evidence of the dual nature of selfmonitoring. Second, Study 2 showed that self-monitoring
and its three subscales were positively related to unethical
business decision making. In addition, overall selfmonitoringas well as the Acting and Other-Directedness
componentsalso demonstrated an indirect effect on
unethical business decision making through moral disengagement. Additionally, we showed that these negative
outcomes of self-monitoring were primarily due to the
low Honesty-Humility side of self-monitoring but not
the extraverted side. As noted earlier, past research has
found that high self-monitors are more likely to engage
in impression management, to condone deceit in order to
gain favours, as well as engage in deception in romantic
relationships (Gangestad & Snyder, 2000; Mcleod &
Genereux, 2008; Turnley & Bolino, 2001). More recently,
Grieves (2011) found that high self-monitoring was
positively associated with self-reported tendencies to engage
in emotional manipulation. Not surprisingly, these same impression management and emotional manipulation tactics have
been associated with low Honesty-Humility (e.g. Bourdage
et al., 2012, 2009; Grieves, 2011). Taken together, the
results of the present research more clearly and directly demonstrate the role of low Honesty-Humility in understanding
the negative effects of self-monitoring on two previously
unexamined ethics-related outcomes.
Implications and future research
High self-monitoring has been associated with success in
different domains of social life and, as such, is often treated
as an adaptive construct. The present research, however,
shows that high self-monitors are also likely to entertain
unethical cognitions and decisions. This may be problematic
in the workplace, for instance, where high self-monitors are
likely to be viewed positively by others and promoted to positions of authority (Day et al., 2002). Moreover, there are
likely to be other unfavourable outcomes that may result
from high self-monitors propensities to morally disengage.
Bandura et al. (1996) have also shown that children and adolescents who engage in moral disengagement are less likely
to engage in prosocial behaviours and more likely to be
prone to aggression. A recent multi-study investigation
(Moore et al., 2012) found that individuals who have a
higher propensity to morally disengage are more likely to
engage in a number of unethical behaviours, including
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542

B. Ogunfowora et al.

stealing, lying and cheating. These individuals showed a

greater tendency to engage in fraudulent activity and made
more self-serving decisions that place others at jeopardy.
Moreover, self-monitoring also demonstrated a direct
effect on ethical business decision making. This suggests that
there may be other explanatory mechanisms for understanding why high self-monitors make unethical decisions that
should be explored in the future. In addition, future studies
should also be devoted to investigating other implications
of the low Honesty-Humility nature of self-monitoring. For
instance, Honesty-Humility is a strong predictor of delinquency, antisocial behaviours, sexual harassment proclivity
and cheating behaviours (Hersheld, Cohen, & Thompson,
2012; Lee, Ashton, & De Vries, 2005; Lee et al., 2003;
ONeill, Lewis, & Carswell, 2011). As such, future studies
should examine the potential links between self-monitoring
and similar negative outcomes.
Similar to past research (Cheek, 1982; Wymer & Penner,
1985), we observed a moderate relationship between selfratings and peer ratings of self-monitoring in Study 1. Past
research has further shown that the magnitude of this selfpeer agreement is roughly the same for high self-monitors
as it is for low self-monitors (Gangestad & Snyder,
2000). As noted by a reviewer, this observation is somewhat disconcerting because if those who rate themselves
as high self-monitors are readily judged by their peers as
high self-monitors, then the objective of self-monitoring
(convincingly presenting differing favourable images to
others) would have failed. This raises the question of
whether there are individual differences in the ability to
be an effective high self-monitor. For instance, past
research has shown that the effective use of impression
management tacticsa set of behaviours related to selfmonitoringdepends on the political skills of the impression manager (e.g. Harris, Kacmar, Zivnuska, & Shaw,
2007). A review of the self-monitoring subscales, however,
showed moderate correlations between self-ratings and
peer ratings of Extraversion (r = .33) and Acting (r = .48),
but not Other-Directedness (r = .09). This suggests that,
unlike the other sub-facets, participants are unable to judge
the Other-Directedness of their peers. This is worth noting
because Other-Directedness embodies the fundamental,
chameleon-like attribute of the high self-monitorthat is,
it describes the extent to which the individual puts on
different favourable facades to different people. The results
indicate that perhaps peers are not capable of judging this
pertinent aspect of high self-monitors after all. Future
research is, however, necessary to replicate these ndings
before substantive conclusions are drawn, particularly given
the lower reliabilities of the self-monitoring subscales in the
present study.
Limitations
The present research has some limitations that warrant
consideration. First, we generally observed low internal
consistency reliability estimates for the subscales of the
Self-Monitoring Scale. Although these reliability estimates
are similar to those that have been reported in past research
Copyright 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

(e.g. Hoyle & Lennox, 1991), the low reliability of these

subscales may have had negative effects on the observed
relationships reported in this study. Another limitation is that
the ndings in Study 2 were based on same source data,
which may limit the inferences made from this study. To
minimize the effects of same source biases, Study 2 incorporated a lagged design that separated measures of the independent, mediator and outcome variables by time (i.e. across
three periods). This does not, however, alleviate concerns
regarding the external validity of the ndings obtained in
Study 2. In particular, this study found a link between selfmonitoring and unethical business decision making by using
a sample of undergraduate business students. The generalizability of this association to decision making in the workplace, however, needs to be established. Last, we should
note that although we focused on two major personality
factors that appear to underlie self-monitoring (Extraversion
and low Honesty-Humility), the self-monitoring construct is
likely more than just a combination of these two personality
variables. For instance, we conducted post hoc regression
analyses relating the HEXACO personality variables as a
set to the overall Self-Monitoring Scale. The results indicate
that, as a whole, the HEXACO model of personality does not
fully account for the variance in self-monitoring (for Study 1,
the average R between the six HEXACO factors and selfmonitoring is .52). Thus, although self-monitoring cannot
be completely understood within the HEXACO framework,
the HEXACO model does provide an avenue for understanding the dishonest side of this important construct.
Conclusion
In sum, the present research illustrates that the self-monitoring
construct has both high Extraversion and low HonestyHumility aspects. An exploration of the low Honesty-Humility
side provided valuable insight into previously unexamined,
negative consequences of self-monitoring. It is our hope that this
research will encourage future work on the implications of the
dishonest side of self-monitoring across different domains of
social life.

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