Empirical evidence on how perceived reward gaps undermine professionalism among university faculty through dual psychological pathways

Abstract

Teacher professionalism is fundamentally about internalizing and enacting core values through self-regulation. Yet, under pressures like the "up-or-out" system and academic "involution", this professionalism is being eroded, leading to a decline in professional beliefs and even deviant behaviors. The deterioration of professional beliefs may further trigger a decline in professionalism, making it imperative to uncover the underlying psychological mechanisms to provide theoretical support for targeted interventions. This study aims to reveal the implicit psychological mechanisms through which perceived reward gap affects the professionalism of university teachers, and to examine heterogeneity across different types of institutions and academic disciplines. Drawing on effort-reward imbalance theory and expectancy disconfirmation theory, a dual-pathway parallel mediation model is constructed, in which perceived reward gap serves as the independent variable, professionalism as the dependent variable, and psychological contract and organizational cynicism as parallel mediators. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey, and empirical analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro (Version 3.3) in SPSS and AMOS (Version 28). The results indicate that professionalism is directly influenced by perceived reward gaps, while psychological contract and organizational cynicism play significant parallel mediating roles between them. Moreover, the mediation effects exhibit heterogeneity across different types of institutions and academic disciplines. Therefore, Universities and government agencies should strengthen communication with teachers, improve evaluation systems, and attend to institutional and disciplinary differences. Teachers are also encouraged to enhance their psychological resilience and professional ethics to sustain personal growth and foster the educator spirit.