Pride-driven competitive ambition can displace money as the motivation for misconduct.

Evidence

What drove Rajaratnam, an eminent financier known for his pride, to self-destruction and the ruin of so many other business executives? Several years earlier, in an interview for the book The New Investment Superstars, Rajaratnam described himself as a relentless competitor (Peltz, 2009). In commenting on his financial success, he explained that he tied his sense of pride to unmatched victories, especially in risky undertakings. “It is pride and I want to win. After a while, money is not the motivation. I want to win every time. Taking calculated risks gets my adrenaline pumping” (Peltz, 2009). However, winning illegally got him an 11-year prison term. This is another case in which morality apparently yielded to overbearing competitive ambition. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1470

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEEPTHINKING: The insight that competition itself — not greed — is the engine of ruin: once winning becomes the motive, the stakes and the morality both dissolve into the game. This recurs across Bandura’s whole framework.

Related

• Competitive victory seeking can supersede money and morality as a motive (similarity 0.94)