8 ms·

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior

103 points by cassianoleal 12d ago

metalliqaz 12d 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.
- jdw64 12d 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.
- yipinwong 12d ago
  [flagged]
  - metalliqaz 12d ago
    this is the kind of abusive comment that usually earns a flag
    - yipinwong 12d ago
      [flagged]
- cestith 12d 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.
  - metalliqaz 12d 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).
kazinator 12d 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.
- swed420 12d ago
  Yes, those yacht upgrades are quite restrained and are a good example for us all.
- upboundspiral 12d 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.
  - pixl97 12d ago
    When you're rich enough there is always someone willing to take the risk of doing your dirty work.
- globalnode 12d 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.
bede 12d 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).
- santoshalper 12d ago
  Poor people aren't buying Ferraris and Bentleys, and yet plenty of them sell, so I think you're taking anecdote as data.
  - asib 12d 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.
  - baubino 12d 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.
  - ranger_danger 12d 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.
  - jppope 12d ago
    5-10 year old used Bentleys are ~50-60K well within the realm of a normal middle class individual.
kolbe 12d 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.
- danny_codes 12d 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
- deleted 12d ago
  [deleted]
- santoshalper 12d 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.
- Supermancho 12d 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.
quickthrowman 12d 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.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 12d ago
  When you don’t have money, all you might possess is social capital. Best not to squander that if possible.
- sebzim4500 11d ago
  You can inherit basically unlimited amounts of wealth without doing much of anything, immoral or otherwise
jdw64 12d 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.
raphman 12d 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/7363E2E1B57AC42EF166E0D0266E50 https://pubpeer.com/publications/7363E2E1B57AC42EF166E0D0266... ²) https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-34988-001?doi=1 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-34988-001?doi=1
- readthenotes1 12d 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
- achrono 12d 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 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382534
Tomte 12d ago
Richard McElreath: https://bsky.app/profile/rmcelreath.bsky.social/post/3muofvcs7yk2j 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!
jppope 12d ago
I guess the good news here is that I can just buy an expensive car and become part of the higher social class.
dominotw 12d ago
unethical behivaiour gets you a high social class in corporate america

103 points by cassianoleal 12d 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.

jdw64 12d 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.
yipinwong 12d ago
[flagged]
- metalliqaz 12d ago
  this is the kind of abusive comment that usually earns a flag
  - yipinwong 12d ago
    [flagged]
cestith 12d 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.
- metalliqaz 12d 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).

kazinator 12d 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.

swed420 12d ago
Yes, those yacht upgrades are quite restrained and are a good example for us all.
upboundspiral 12d 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.
- pixl97 12d ago
  When you're rich enough there is always someone willing to take the risk of doing your dirty work.
globalnode 12d 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.

bede 12d 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).

santoshalper 12d ago
Poor people aren't buying Ferraris and Bentleys, and yet plenty of them sell, so I think you're taking anecdote as data.
- asib 12d 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.
- baubino 12d 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.
- ranger_danger 12d 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.
- jppope 12d ago
  5-10 year old used Bentleys are ~50-60K well within the realm of a normal middle class individual.

kolbe 12d 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.

danny_codes 12d 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
deleted 12d ago
[deleted]
santoshalper 12d 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.
Supermancho 12d 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.

quickthrowman 12d 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.

0cf8612b2e1e 12d ago
When you don’t have money, all you might possess is social capital. Best not to squander that if possible.
sebzim4500 11d ago
You can inherit basically unlimited amounts of wealth without doing much of anything, immoral or otherwise

jdw64 12d 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.

raphman 12d 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/7363E2E1B57AC42EF166E0D0266E50 https://pubpeer.com/publications/7363E2E1B57AC42EF166E0D0266... ²) https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-34988-001?doi=1 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-34988-001?doi=1

readthenotes1 12d 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
achrono 12d 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 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382534

Tomte 12d ago

Richard McElreath: https://bsky.app/profile/rmcelreath.bsky.social/post/3muofvcs7yk2j 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!

jppope 12d ago

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

dominotw 12d ago

unethical behivaiour gets you a high social class in corporate america