To tip off or not? Predicting gatekeepers’ reporting intentions of a deviant close-other through desirability and feasibility

ABSTRACT

Gatekeepers’ tipping-off serves as a crucial first line of defense in safeguarding individuals and society from emerging, severe deviant behaviors. The present research provides a theoretically driven, quantitative approach in examining a gatekeeper’s decision to tip-off a deviant close-other to the authorities. We draw inspiration from motivation science and propose a dual-factor model with desirability and feasibility forming two distinct mediating pathways through which a range of personal and situational factors predict gatekeepers’ reporting intentions. In four studies (N = 1142), we demonstrate the robustness and generalizability of the model across diverse deviant behaviors (racial prejudice, addictive gambling and violent extremism) and populations (Asians vs. Americans). We also provide evidence of the theoretical utility of the model in (1) differentiating complex motives underlying gatekeepers’ reporting, (2) arbitrating competing theoretical accounts of reporting and (3) demonstrating a synergistic interaction between desirability and feasibility. The present research underscores the value of applying a motivation science perspective to enhance understanding of gatekeepers’ decision-making process and offers empirically based suggestions for designing relevant crime-reporting interventions.

KEYWORDS:

• Tip-off
• deviant behavior
• desirability and feasibility
• motivation
• social cognition

Open Scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XDU2W and http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XDU2W.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 To our knowledge, only one study has empirically examined gatekeepers’ reporting of deviant behaviours. Researchers experimentally manipulated the presence (or absence) of a disclaimer at a call-center that disclosures may be referred to law enforcement (Williams et al., 2018b). The presence of the disclaimer reduced participants’ willingness to disclose third-party involvement in non-violent, general crimes (e.g. shoplifting) but had no effect on their disclosure regarding terrorism, gang, and assault-related incidents.

2 We provide the racialized breakdown of participants across all studies as testament to the distinct racial composition of the two different cultures in which we conducted our investigation. In addition, race did not have any interactive effects in our dual-factor model and is therefore not discussed in this paper.

3 The other three dimensions in the national identification scale (Roccas et al., 2008) – importance (α = .85), commitment (α = .89), and superiority (α = .77) – have also been measured. Pattern of results remained the same when these dimensions were included in the model as covariates b = 0.13, SE = 0.06, 95% CI [0.01, 0.25].

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National University of Singapore: [Grant Number R-581-000-165-133].