Found an interesting QB reference from someone's
social psychology notes
page:
"Competence"
Competence is the ability to do something. We tend to like
people who are good at doing what they do because it is
more rewarding to be around competent people vs. inept
people. But if someone is too competent, too perfect, our
liking decreases somewhat. Aronson, Willerman, & Floyd
(1966) did a study in which subjects heard tapes of a
student trying out for the College Quiz Bowl team. Some
subjects heard a student who answered almost all of the
questions correctly and some heard a student with mediocre
performance. Subject then rated how much they liked each
student, and the first student was preferred over the
second. But, some of the subjects who heard the tape of
the nearly perfect student then heard him spill
coffee in his lap. Subjects "liked" the nearly perfect
student more when he made a blunder. Maybe some people
just seem too perfect, and that scares us.