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Quality management focuses on improvements aimed at enhancing the value created for various stakeholders. However, actions taken in response to a perceived problem sometimes lead to an inferior result rather than an improvement. Such actions have been denoted tampering. As an example, natural variation might unnecessarily be perceived as a problem, where the best way to handle that ‘problem’ would be to not act at all. However, for someone trained in quality management and striving for improvement, doing nothing might be more challenging than acting. The research question studied in this paper is: How do emotional, motivational and cognitive mechanisms influence tampering in problem-solving situations? Through interviews with 17 respondents, 33 tampering situations were identified and analysed. The findings describe emotional, motivational and cognitive mechanisms that lead individuals to …