While public service motivation (PSM) is widely recognized as a predictor of multiple positive employee outcomes, it remains unclear whether and how PSM can be intentionally cultivated. By conducting a scenario-based experiment and a field survey, the present research investigates how exposure to moral exemplars, often used in Chinese civil servants’ training, positively influences civil servants’ PSM through moral elevation. Grounded in the conservation of resources (COR) theory, we hypothesized and found that civil servants experience feelings of moral elevation after being exposed to acts of uncommon moral goodness, and this resource replenishment consequently fosters PSM (Study 1). Furthermore, this mediating effect was more pronounced among civil servants with greater resource demands (higher cognitive load in Study 2). Overall, the research attempts to examine whether PSM is “trainable”, and reveals the underlying cognitive mechanisms and boundary conditions involved in shaping civil servants’ PSM.
