It is well understood that moral identity substantially influences moral judgments. However, occupational identities are also replete with moral content, and individuals may have multiple occupational identities within a given work role (e.g., engineer-manager). Consequently, we apply the lenses of moral universalism and moral particularism to categorize occupational identities and explore their moral prescriptions. We present and test a model of occupational identities as implicitly-held and dynamically-activated knowledge structures, cued by context and containing associated content about the absolute and/or relationship-dependent moral obligations owed by the actor to stakeholders. Results from one field study and two situated experiments with dual-occupation individuals indicate that moral obligations embedded in occupational identities influence actors’ work-role moral judgments in a predictable and meaningful manner.
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