Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior

Posted by cassianoleal 4 days ago

Comments

Comment by raphman 4 days ago

It seems that at least three groups tried to replicate the study and failed (i.e., found no or little actual effect)¹.

> In contrast, other research in economics and sociology has hypothesized and found a positive relationship between SES and prosocial and ethical behavior. We review the empirical evidence for these contradictory findings and conduct two direct, well-powered, and preregistered replications of the field studies by Piff and colleagues (2012) to test the relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior. Unlike the original findings, we find no evidence of a positive relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior in the two field replication studies.

¹) https://pubpeer.com/publications/7363E2E1B57AC42EF166E0D0266... ²) https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-34988-001?doi=1

Comment by achrono 4 days ago

There was also this follow-up [1], pointing out that most of these 7 studies only had something like a 50–65% estimated chance of producing a significant result, yet all 7 did.

In other words, if a whole series of fairly noisy experiments all comes out squeaky clean, you have to wonder whether you're actually seeing the whole series.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382534

Comment by readthenotes1 4 days ago

The sad thing is how many people will believe this and repeat it. Kind of like the Stanford Prison or Milgram experiment, Or pretty much most anything that's come out of sociology

Comment by bede 4 days ago

"As vehicles are reliable indicators of a person's social rank and wealth"

The wealthiest Europeans I know drive the cheapest vehicles. Modesty is wealth in many parts of the world, but perhaps not in California (the authors are affiliated with UC Berkeley).

Comment by morsch 4 days ago

> The wealthiest Europeans I know drive the cheapest vehicles

That may well be true of the people you know, but in general the relationship is exactly what one would expect: the higher people's income, the more expensive their car purchases.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/articles/2...

Full paper: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/articles/2...

Comment by cameldrv 4 days ago

However, there is another factor at play, which is that people who are more image conscious drive nicer cars at the same level of income/wealth, and in my experience, people who are more image conscious also tend to act more like jerks.

Comment by 1659447091 4 days ago

> in my experience, people who are more image conscious also tend to act more like jerks.

That has been my experience as well. Ive experienced people who are more image conscious to appear to be in an imaginary competition with others and they tend to act accordingly.

Comment by 4 days ago

Comment by bede 3 days ago

Thanks for sharing data. I suspect this effect is heavily stratified across demographics.

After a point, how much someone chooses to spend on their car is about their values more than their wealth.

I once lived in a street with many parked cars worth almost as much the houses of their owners. They were clearly bought (well, financed) as status symbols. I now live in a more affluent, desirable area where the cars are much more modest despite higher wealth and social status of their owners (doctors, scientists etc).

Comment by badpun 4 days ago

That's income, not wealth though. Some wealthy people don't have very high incomes.

Comment by philipov 4 days ago

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Comment by axus 4 days ago

I would have guessed vehicle as predicting ethics more than bank balance. Dumb Toyota and minivan more trustworthy than a Porsche, Dodge Charger, or Cyber Truck.

Comment by moralestapia 4 days ago

>The wealthiest Europeans I know drive the cheapest vehicles.

Yeah, that's a fun meme, I'm sure it still gets a lot of likes on Instagram.

The data shows otherwise, however.

Comment by camkego 4 days ago

This really does seem to call into question the credibility of this study.

Comment by rootusrootus 4 days ago

Why would an rando anecdote (which another sibling comment has proven does not reflect the broader reality) call into question an actual study? The latter may be garbage, or not, but it starts with a much better claim to credibility.

Comment by sandworm101 4 days ago

They dont drive flash vehicles but they still do not drive junk. Thier car might be 20+ years old, but it is still a great car. Someone driving a well-maintained 90s BMW gathers more respect than anyone driving the latest model.

Clarkson had a line about estate owners driving "ancestral transport", invariably a land rover as old as the trees it lives amongst.

Ultimate statement about european land owners driving ancient vehicles: https://youtu.be/R8-9oIq1hxw?si=Ogg7C5MjFRoDdC9R

Comment by itake 4 days ago

criminals can’t deposit their money into a bank, but they can buy a $200,000 Lambo.

Comment by gruez 4 days ago

>criminals can’t deposit their money into a bank

They can. It just gets reported to FinCEN, which might attract unwanted attention. The same applies to buying a $200k lambo with cash, which has to be reported to the IRS[1], on top of being registered with the state DMV.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

Comment by itake 3 days ago

Not that I know about these things...

Some people buy used hot rods on Facebook Marketplace for around $100k, then trade them in to a dealership. They claim they only paid $5k for the car and their labor increased the value to $100k, then use that trade-in value to get the car they actually want.

Comment by junofan 4 days ago

They just set up financing. You can definitely buy cars with drug money.

Comment by pixl97 4 days ago

I worked with a client that sold stuff that was legal, but directed a lot of ad traffic to very questionable stuff and made a crazy amount of money from it.

Because of this there was always some risk of the government locking up bank accounts, so physical assets were purchased and spread around to avoid seizure of all finances which can prevent a person from fighting a legal battle.

Comment by chaostheory 4 days ago

This is also a common trope for the North American West Coast including California, but I haven’t looked for actual data to confirm it

Comment by santoshalper 4 days ago

Poor people aren't buying Ferraris and Bentleys, and yet plenty of them sell, so I think you're taking anecdote as data.

Comment by asib 4 days ago

The opposite of modesty is not "buying a Ferrari". Anyone at any level of wealth can be immodest.

Not saying I agree with GP, but your point doesn't hold up.

Comment by baubino 4 days ago

There’s still a strong cultural bias though that is likely location dependent. I have lived in very wealthy towns for which there was not a single Ferrari or Bentley around (or any other luxury car for that matter). That ownership of an expensive car requires some degree of wealth is absolutely clear, but the inverse doesn’t follow —- average cars don’t indicate average income. It could be that the study finds that certain ethical biases are related to people who buy expensive cars, which is not the same as saying that certain ethical biases are related to wealthy people. Millionaires who drive Toyotas could simply exhibit different ethical standards than millionaires who drive Ferraris.

Comment by a34729t 4 days ago

A frank conversation with a luxury car dealer might surrise you. People are buying these things on credit mostly, and are definitely not rich.

Comment by jppope 4 days ago

5-10 year old used Bentleys are ~50-60K well within the realm of a normal middle class individual.

Comment by heavenlyblue 4 days ago

Arent bentleys designed to be driven by a separate driver not by the owner? :)

Comment by KellyCriterion 4 days ago

Compared to pricing, maybe.

But driving a bently is "some work", so I would rather prefer the small e-vehicle :-))

Comment by sublinear 4 days ago

I think the point was many people are car enthusiasts and can technically afford the maintenance if they want it that bad.

In fact, it usually takes them down the path of flipping the cars and falling up instead of down.

Comment by KellyCriterion 4 days ago

My fault, with >some work< I meant only the driving experience / effort, not any of the "maintenance / support" related issues (-:

Short version: I would go rather in leight-weight E-vehicle than in a heavy bently, navigating like an aircraft carrier

Comment by convolvatron 4 days ago

two doors down from my shop is an antique bently restorer. he's sold a few, but he still has 5 frames that he's working on. after all the custom panel and interior work and chasing after the few remaining parts available in all kinds of odd international corners he's still quite underwater.

Comment by sublinear 4 days ago

Sucks to be that guy? I'm not sure what your point is. You haven't given enough information to assess much. It's also likely you don't know all the numbers or you'd be working there.

Comment by ranger_danger 4 days ago

> Poor people aren't buying Ferraris and Bentleys

No, but sometimes they can finance a very (comparatively) expensive car for way too many years at an insane percentage just to appear wealthier than they are. And that stomps on the study just as much as millionaires driving a Camry IMO.

Comment by anukin 4 days ago

It’s also in California. People flaunt wealth outside of cali though.

Comment by Tomte 4 days ago

Richard McElreath: https://bsky.app/profile/rmcelreath.bsky.social/post/3muofvc...

> In the actual candy study, the participants were all students, status was manipulated in the lab by telling some students they were better than others, and "nearly twice" means 1 piece vs 2 pieces.

> oh and the researchers told participants they could take some candy. There was no stealing!

Comment by kazinator 4 days ago

A lot of ethical behavior is actually invented by the higher classes to imbue the lower classes with self-policing. It's a social pattern across pretty much all human civilizations that have been.

Comment by michael0church 4 days ago

Upper class: often flawlessly ethical, never moral.

Working class: sometimes moral, often indifferent to formal ethics that they feel were set in place without their consent.

The social language of appearing to avoid conflicts of interest and self-dealing is one in which upper-middle and upper class people are fluent. In terms of morality (avoiding harm, rather than avoiding violations of semiformal social principles) there is a negative correlation to SES, but it’s very slight because it turns out there are also scoundrels at the bottom.

Comment by globalnode 4 days ago

The cynic in me wants to agree with this but im not so sure, ive seen all sorts of behaviour from all sorts of people.

Comment by swed420 4 days ago

Yes, those yacht upgrades are quite restrained and are a good example for us all.

Comment by upboundspiral 4 days ago

I agree with the sentiment but I would like to push back against this a little bit. I think that there is a common set of human needs / principles that we can all agree are good, such as the golden rule, etc, etc.

But here's what I think happens: people with more power can more easily hide their transgressions. So in practice its easier to enforce rules against people with less power.

Second, a known and agreed upon good is really useful when seeking to manipulate people and generate "thought terminating cliches". Certain organizations / groups have gotten really good at taking known good things, and weave in their agenda and propaganda, linking something obvious with something that seems to make sense but actually doesn't.

History is rittled with how a call to ethical behaviour has been abused by the rich and powerful to keep the lower classes down. In Europe the Church used this to extol the virtues of poverty to the poor while selling pardons to the rich.

In China, the richness of Confucian philosophy was distilled down to obey orders from above / filial piety above all else, etc etc.

The fact that bad actors have taken something good and done bad things with them does not take away the value that can be found, it just needs to be on our own terms, and not someone else's.

Comment by pixl97 4 days ago

When you're rich enough there is always someone willing to take the risk of doing your dirty work.

Comment by mannanj 4 days ago

Yeah. It's uncomfortable, but I have come to a similar conclusion. Part of the self-policing apparatus in my eyes is to also: a) keep the lower classes sicker and busier thus less able to make time and energy to change their environment b) condition them through education systems and social & cultural norms to be naive, gullible and approval-seeking and c) trigger fear and danger as much as possible to provide the solutions and thus be the needed entities in problems they create and have an edge in solving.

It isn't quite a conspiracy as much as it's a lower-level animalistic behavior. You see this sort of behavior occur in monkeys in tribes where alpha chimps will create conflict, drive war, and cut off competitors from resources to secure their edge and position.

Comment by fangspire 4 days ago

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Comment by jdw64 4 days ago

Written laws are like spiders' webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

Comment by jppope 4 days ago

I guess the good news here is that I can just buy an expensive car and become part of the higher social class.

Comment by kolbe 4 days ago

I guess a handful of shoddy studies that are both terrible at isolating ethics and terrible at identifying social class are move persuasive than homicide, assault, and property crime statistics.

Comment by santoshalper 4 days ago

Other than "I don't like what this implies", what were your specific complaints? Because I don't believe you actually read any of the studies.

Comment by 4 days ago

Comment by Supermancho 4 days ago

I can agree that poor people break the law more often. Not "are convicted of" but the acts.

I think the reasons are obvious and unrelated to the point of the study. Desperation, culture (broken window theory) which is critically related to average wealth, lack of opportunity, and legal veracity explains the statistics sufficiently.

Comment by danny_codes 4 days ago

Rich people have more capacity to do harm. For example that dude Luigi killed was a mass murderer, he killed 1000s, maybe 10,000s of people. So it’s hard for a poor criminal to compete

Comment by quickthrowman 4 days ago

I think unethical behavior is necessary to have a certain amount of wealth, I’m not sure where the line is, but I do think it’s there.

Also, it seems that higher status/income people benefit a lot more from acting unethically than lower income people would, the more money at the table, the more beneficial it is to act unethically. I’m not saying it to excuse anyone’s behavior, just speculating out loud.

Comment by sebzim4500 3 days ago

You can inherit basically unlimited amounts of wealth without doing much of anything, immoral or otherwise

Comment by 0cf8612b2e1e 4 days ago

When you don’t have money, all you might possess is social capital. Best not to squander that if possible.

Comment by dominotw 4 days ago

unethical behivaiour gets you a high social class in corporate america

Comment by metalliqaz 4 days ago

Yes this is common knowledge. Most of us live within a given social hierarchy, and this effect is part of being a participant by default. We understand it intuitively.

"Rules for thee but not for me."

"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

Senators build their wealth by millions while "working" for the public, and nobody bats an eye. We all know how it works.

It's why some celebrities are so loved when they don't fit the mold. People give up their seat on the subway every day, but when Keanu Reeves does it, he is venerated. Most people don't have any care for the people who run charities, but Dolly Parton is practically sainted for hers. All high-status people need to do is not be wicked and we are awed by it.

Comment by cestith 4 days ago

> "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

Do you know the source of that quote and the context? It was Frank Wilhoit explaining the core of the problem with conservatism. He wrote it when proposing anti-conservatism. To quote it as a general rule of life presumes that conservatism is the only way humans can organize a society.

Comment by metalliqaz 4 days ago

Yes I do and perhaps instead of making that presumption you could simply understand conservatives to be those who perceive themselves to be part of that higher social class (or at least want to).

Comment by jdw64 4 days ago

I think it's a matter of reach. Most ordinary people's good deeds have a small audience—the 'N' in a 1:N spread is limited. But the bigger the fame, the larger the audience becomes. From that perspective, when Keanu Reeves does something good, the number of people influenced by that act is much larger. I believe humans are creatures shaped by their environment—and they are influenced by it. So it's socially acknowledged that piling up these good actions is beneficial, and the greater the influence of such actions, the larger the impact they have. Of course, this is just my hypothesis.