Power and status are two critical elements of social hierarchy. However, whether power and status have similar effects on unethical behavior has received inconsistent results. We constructed a theoretical model of power, status, and unethical behavior to address this issue by integrating the approach-inhibition theory and expectation states theory. We verified this model based on 132 samples reported in 95 articles. Our meta-analytic results show that power and status affect unethical behavior differently, such that power is positively related to unethical behavior. Contrastingly, status is negatively associated with unethical behavior. Furthermore, power and status have different indirect effects on unethical behavior through moral cognition. Compared with power, status has a stronger indirect inhibitory effect on unethical behavior through moral cognition. We also examined the moderating role of power distance in the indirect effects of power and status on unethical behavior. The results of the moderated mediation meta-analysis show that the indirect positive effect of power on unethical behavior through moral cognition and the indirect negative effect of status on unethical behavior through moral cognition are stronger when power distance is higher. These findings help scholars better understand how power and status may increase or inhibit unethical behavior and when this occurs. Furthermore, these findings provide more convincing and referential evidence for practitioners.

权力和地位是社会等级制度的两个关键要素。然而，权力和地位是否对不道德行为有类似的影响，却得到了不一致的结果。我们通过整合接近抑制理论和期望状态理论，构建了权力、地位和不道德行为的理论模型来解决这个问题。我们根据 95 篇文章中报告的 132 个样本验证了该模型。我们的荟萃分析结果表明，权力和地位对不道德行为的影响不同，因此权力与不道德行为呈正相关。相反，地位与不道德行为呈负相关。此外，权力和地位通过道德认知对不道德行为产生不同的间接影响。与权力相比，地位通过道德认知对不道德行为具有更强的间接抑制作用。我们还研究了权力距离在权力和地位对不道德行为的间接影响中的调节作用。有调节中介荟萃分析的结果表明，权力距离越大，权力通过道德认知对不道德行为的间接正向影响和地位通过道德认知对不道德行为的间接负向影响越强。这些发现有助于学者更好地理解权力和地位如何增加或抑制不道德行为以及这种情况何时发生。此外，这些研究结果为从业者提供了更有说服力和参考性的证据。