Participants completed (a) the Scenario Booklet, (b) a copy of the Integrity Scale (Schlenker, 2007), and (c) a short version of the Social Desirability Scale (Reynolds, 1982).2 They took the materials home, were asked to complete them in a quiet place where they would not be bothered or distracted, and returned them at their next class. To ensure anonymity, participants used a code name of their own choosing to identify their questionnaires.

1. An attempt was made to manipulate the desirability of the goal (e.g., a pro-

motion at a smaller company or a Fortune 500 company), but manipulation

checks indicated that the goal was seen comparably in both conditions (e.g., as

equally difficult to achieve). All analyses therefore collapsed across this variable.

2. Preliminary analyses included social desirability as a predictor along with in-

tegrity, event, sex, and their interactions. There were no main effects of social

desirability on any of the dependent variables and fewer interactions than would

be expected by chance, with no consistent or interesting patterns and no quali-

fications of any of the reported effects. As in Study 1, social desirability did not aid

in interpreting the results. Social desirability scores again showed only a small

relationship with integrity (r5 .16, p5 .04), accounting for 2.6% of the common variance.

What Makes a Hero? 341

Dependent Measures

Participants evaluated the central character and the event on bipolar scales (1 to 7 with labeled endpoints). Evaluations of the central character were averaged into the categories used in Study 1. These included assess- ments of the extent to which the central character was principled (Cron- bach’s a5 .95; 7 items, e.g., principled, high integrity, moral, honest, trustworthy); authentic (a5 .92; 4 items, e.g., true to own self, follows own conscience); beneficent (a5 .88; 4 items, e.g., cares for others, altru- istic, generous); likable (a5 .88; 4 items, e.g., likable, would want as a friend); intelligent (a5 .85; 4 items, e.g., wise, knowledgeable, street smart); and effective (a5 .90; 9 items, e.g., effective, persevering, deter- mined, successful, strong, powerful). Also as in Study 1, two items as- sessed the extent to which the central character was judged to be spiritual and similar to oneself. In addition, items assessed the character’s retro- spective reactions looking back on the decision (a5 .89; 5 items: e.g., pleased, proud, satisfied). As checks of the ethical event manipulations, respondents evaluated the valence of the outcome for the central charac- ter’s career-related goals (a5 .94; 3 items: good, desirable, a dream) and the ethicality of the decision (a5 .90; 2 items: moral, good).

We expected that those higher in integrity would show more admira- tion for the ethical-failure, and more condemnation of the unethical- success, than those lower in integrity. Those low as compared to high in integrity would regard the unethical-success as more effective, intelligent, likable and even moral and the ethical-failure as less effective, intelligent, and likable. By including the different categories, we could discover if effects generalized or were related only to specific dimensions (e.g., mo- rality or effectiveness, which correspond to the ethics and consequences of the manipulations).