Benevolent friends and high integrity leaders: How preferences for benevolence and integrity change across relationships

Individuals value benevolence and integrity in their partners. However, in many workplace dilemmas benevolence and integrity conflict. Across 5 experiments (and 8 supplemental studies), we demonstrate that the relative importance individuals attach to having partners that prioritize either benevolence or integrity systematically shifts across relationships. We introduce the Size-Closeness-Hierarchy (SCH) Model, a theoretical framework to characterize preferences individuals have for benevolent versus high-integrity partners across workplace relationships that vary in group size, emotional closeness, and hierarchy. According to our model, as relationships involve more people, become more emotionally distant, and become more hierarchical (relational features common in leaders), individuals become more likely to prefer high-integrity partners. However, as relationships involve fewer people, become more emotionally close, and become more equal (relational features common in friends), individuals become more likely prefer benevolent partners. Our findings advance our understanding of the interplay between moral values, leadership, and interpersonal perceptions.