The Competence Paradox
How High-Competence Unethical Actors Inhibit Observers’ Unethical Intentions via Social Desirability (and How Money Undermines It)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21477348 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Qinglei Li (0000-0002-4515-7963, Hubei Normal University), Qiaoping Li (0000-0002-8658-6860, Hubei Normal University), Jiaxin Chen (0009-0002-7669-5016, Xinjiang Normal University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 222-235 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-04 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Basic and Applied Social Psychology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0197-3533 • E-ISSN: 1532-4834 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/01973533.2025.2598246 |
| OpenAlex | W4417157781 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 45 |
This study investigates how the competence of unethical actors influences observers’ willingness to engage in unethical behavior, along with the underlying psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions. Through three experiments, we observed that: (1) Compared with unethical acts committed by low-competence individuals, those by high-competence individuals were associated with reduced observers’ own willingness to behave unethically (Experiment 1); (2) This effect appears to occur through heightened social desirability among observers, which corresponded with reduced unethical intentions (Experiment 2); (3) Money priming appears to eliminate the above effect. Specifically, under money priming (vs. control), the inhibitory effect of high-competence (vs. low-competence) actors’ unethical behavior on observers’ unethical intentions was no longer observed (Experiment 3). These findings offer theoretical and empirical insights into the vulnerability of moral exemplars and the potential erosive effect of money on moral sensitivity
Moral standards · Social approval · Social competence · Social desirability · Social desirability bias · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Ethics in Business and Education · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
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| Highly cited | No |
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