http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-0228-greed-20120228,0,5965885.story

Quote :

"The rich really are different from the rest of us, scientists have found — they are more apt to commit unethical acts because they are more motivated by greed. People driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Berkeley researchers observed. Those findings led to a series of experiments that revealed that people of higher socioeconomic status were also more likely to cheat to win a prize, take candy from children and say they would pocket extra change handed to them in error rather than give it back. Because rich people have more financial resources, they're less dependent on social bonds for survival, the Berkeley researchers reported Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As a result, their self-interest reigns and they have fewer qualms about breaking the rules. "If you occupy a more insular world, you're less likely to be sensitive to the needs of others," said study lead author Paul Piff, who is studying for a doctorate in psychology. But before those in the so-called 99% start feeling ethically superior, consider this: Piff and his colleagues also discovered that anyone's ethical standards could be prone to slip if they suddenly won the lottery and joined the top 1%. "There is a strong notion that when people don't have much, they're really looking out for themselves and they might act unethically," said Scott Wiltermuth, who researches social status at USC's Marshall School of Business and wasn't involved in the study. "But actually, it's the upper-class people that are less likely to see that people around them need help — and therefore act unethically." In earlier studies, Piff documented that wealthy people were less likely to act generously than relatively impoverished people. With this research, he hoped to find out whether wealthy people would also prioritize self-interest if it meant breaking the rules. The driving experiments offered a way to test the hypothesis "naturalistically," he said. Trained observers hid near a downtown Berkeley intersection and noted the makes, model years and conditions of bypassing cars. Then they recorded whether drivers waited their turn. It turned out that people behind the wheels of the priciest cars were four times as likely as drivers of the least expensive cars to enter the intersection when they didn't have the right of way. The discrepancy was even greater when it came to a pedestrian trying to exercise a right of way. There is a significant correlation between the price of a car and the social class of its driver, Piff said. Still, how fancy a car looks isn't a perfect indicator of wealth. So back in the laboratory, Piff and his colleagues conducted five more tests to measure unethical behavior — and to connect that behavior to underlying attitudes toward greed. For instance, the team used a standard questionnaire to get college students to assess their own socioeconomic status and asked how likely subjects were to behave unethically in eight different scenarios. In one of the quandaries, students were asked to imagine that they bought coffee and a muffin with a $10 bill but were handed change for a $20. Would they keep the money? In another hypothetical scenario, students realized their professor made a mistake in grading an exam and gave them an A instead of the B they deserved. Would they ask for a grade change? The patterns from the road held true in the lab — those most willing to engage in unethical behavior were the ones with the highest social status. One possible explanation was that wealthy people are simply more willing to acknowledge their selfish side. But that wasn't the issue here. When test subjects of any status were asked to imagine themselves at a high social rank, they helped themselves to more candies from a jar they were told was meant for children in another lab. Another experiment recruited people from Craigslist to play a "game of chance" that the researchers had rigged. People who reported higher social class were more likely to have favorable attitudes toward greed — and were more likely to cheat at the game. "The patterns were just so consistent," Piff said. "It was very, very compelling." Piff, who is writing a paper about attitudes toward the Occupy movement, said that his team had been accused of waging class warfare from time to time. "Berkeley has a certain reputation, so yeah, we get that," he said. But rather than vilify the wealthy, Piff said, he hopes his work leads to policies that help bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots. Acts as simple as watching a movie about childhood poverty seem to encourage people of all classes to help others in need, he said."

Interesting, but not surprising.

2/28/2012 8:39:41 AM

socioeconomic class is often blamed (at least as a pathway) for poor urbanites committing crimes, right? so rich = unethical; poor = criminals; and crimes = unethical, so all people are shit, fuck'em all.

2/28/2012 8:48:37 AM

Mo money mo problems

2/28/2012 8:48:47 AM

Not really that surprising. in life and especially in the work place, i've found the most successful people ($-wise) are those that are a bit more morally flexible than their peers. This moral flexibility allows them to operate in ways to their benefit....ways that constrain others.

I guess it all comes down to your need/ability to lay your head down on your pillow at the end of the day, and go to sleep inowing you're a good person.

shrug.

2/28/2012 8:59:27 AM

Quote :

"crimes = unethical"

This is not true.

Quote :

"socioeconomic class is often blamed (at least as a pathway) for poor urbanites committing crimes, right?"

Crime isn't a part of this study, because it's independent of ethics.

2/28/2012 9:25:09 AM

or maybe theyve cheated their entire lives to get ahead?

why refrain from a proven formula?

2/28/2012 9:37:58 AM

ah, murder, theft, etc. aren't unethical!

2/28/2012 9:42:42 AM

lol this rhetoric building up the election is genius. it's the only hand you have


RICH = BAD

PEOPLE WHO WORK AND KEEP THEIR MONEY IS HORRIBLE

POOR PEOPLE ARE MISTREATED 100% OF THE TIME AND NO BIG GOVT IS THERE TO TAKE CARE OF THEM

REPUBLICANS ARE THE ROOT OF IT


guys this is all we are gonna hear from the democrats until nov 30. it's gonna get really repetitive

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 9:52 AM. Reason : -]

2/28/2012 9:48:49 AM

who said anything about republicans?

2/28/2012 10:23:52 AM

Quote :

"People driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Berkeley researchers observed."

Assertive people will only wait so long for you to GTFO of the way.


I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on this whole story. I highly suspect this guy tailored his tests to reach the conclusion he wanted to find.

2/28/2012 10:28:34 AM

^^pack_bryan did. Only pack_bryan.

^ Aaaaaannnnnnnnddddddddd you missed the entire point of the article. Congratulations.

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 10:32 AM. Reason : ]

2/28/2012 10:31:55 AM

oh look propaganda from the LATimes spreading news that rich people are bad and being rich is bad


nope. nothing to see here.

brb. i need to go blindly read my propaganda from huffington post / russian tv / and al jazeera for the day

2/28/2012 10:36:40 AM

Quote :

"ah, murder, theft, etc. aren't unethical!"

Laws do not dictate ethics. Many times moral actions are unlawful, and lawful actions are immoral.

I do get what you're trying to say, though. Higher crime rate could be an indication of poor overall ethics, but not necessarily. If people who aren't criminals have good ethics, it could even out. (And by criminals, I mean people who commit crimes that are not victimless).

I don't expect this study to cover the entire spectrum of the population, but for the subset it focused on, the people with higher social status tended to be less ethical.

Quote :

"I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on this whole story. I highly suspect this guy tailored his tests to reach the conclusion he wanted to find."

Haha I knew someone would say this.

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 10:45 AM. Reason : .]

2/28/2012 10:42:03 AM

Quote :

"Haha I knew someone would say this."

Let's be real...
Cutting people off at a four way stop sign is not a measure of ethics.

I wonder how many rich people are ripping copper wires and plumbing out of the walls of unoccupied homes these days? Ever seen a wealthy person steal the copper core out of a church's $10,000 HVAC system? Ever seen a wealthy person crawl under your SUV in a parking lot to steal the catalytic converter; leaving you with a $1100 bill so they can go get $30 at the recycling facility? How many wealthy people have rammed their truck through the wall of a convenience store to steal a suitcase of beer?

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 10:46 AM. Reason : l]

2/28/2012 10:45:22 AM

^
I agree, and that's why I posted

Quote :

"Higher crime rate could be an indication of poor overall ethics, but not necessarily. If people who aren't criminals have good ethics, it could even out. (And by criminals, I mean people who commit crimes that are not victimless). I don't expect this study to cover the entire spectrum of the population, but for the subset it focused on, the people with higher social status tended to be less ethical."

The four-way stop might be a poor example depending on how it was done, but cheating and stealing were also covered. Read the whole article.

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 10:48 AM. Reason : .]

2/28/2012 10:46:40 AM

Quote :

"In one of the quandaries, students were asked to imagine that they bought coffee and a muffin with a $10 bill but were handed change for a $20. Would they keep the money?"

im somewhat doubtful that the bank exec is more likely to walk out with this and not some broke-ass white trash.

they would think theyd won the damn lottery!

also, i dont know how it is in berkeley or raleigh, but the people driving like theyre in a shooting gallery are the broke-ass niggas in late 80s mercury pieces of shit.

im afraid this article doesnt seem quite grounded in real life-

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 10:55 AM. Reason : -]

2/28/2012 10:48:39 AM

Quote :

"I wonder how many rich people are ripping copper wires and plumbing out of the walls of unoccupied homes these days? Ever seen a wealthy person steal the copper core out of a church's $10,000 HVAC system? Ever seen a wealthy person crawl under your SUV in a parking lot to steal the catalytic converter; leaving you with a $1100 bill so they can go get $30 at the recycling facility? How many wealthy people have rammed their truck through the wall of a convenience store to steal a suitcase of beer?"

Even seen a poor person crash the global economy by knowingly trading toxic housing assets?


edit: Also, sorry adultswim it's seriously pathetic how few people itt actually read the article. Not that my comment relates terribly well, just lettin you know it's a good article neway

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 11:00 AM. Reason : .]

2/28/2012 10:57:48 AM

Quote :

" Even seen a poor person crash the global economy by knowingly trading toxic housing assets? edit: Also, sorry adultswim it's seriously pathetic how few people itt actually read the article. Not that my comment relates terribly well, just lettin you know it's a good article neway"

possibly one of the most ironic things ever said in TSB.

2/28/2012 11:10:26 AM

I was responding to Shack's post in-kind.

As for the article itself it's not terribly surprising, I'd wager than there might be some internal risk-assessments that go along with any unethical behavior, specifically the consequences of "getting caught". Becoming wealthy probably just changes the relative severity of "getting caught" scenarios in general and makes people more daring. Not to mention, as the article points out, wealth comes with a degree of isolation/insulation which probably detracts from the perceived legitimacy of the "rules".

I guess there's also the feeling of inflated self-worth they tend to feel, as reported by similar studies, which I guess translates into less concern for the worth of others.

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 11:22 AM. Reason : .]

2/28/2012 11:13:49 AM

Quote :

"Even seen a poor person crash the global economy by knowingly trading toxic housing assets?"

Who bought the houses they couldn't afford making those assets toxic in the first place? There's plenty of blame to go around.

It would also be interesting to see this study done in a low SES area too. I mean downtown Berkeley and the Berkeley campus aren't exactly east bumble fuck SC.

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 1:53 PM. Reason : fgh]

2/28/2012 1:42:30 PM

Three points:

1) Ideally, a banker has incentive to make loans that follow through, so they restrict their advice to potential loanees to good advice. Without that incentive, and incentives to make bad loans, that translates into an incentive to actively deceive people. Do you think that every person who wants to buy a home should personally put the time and effort into learning finance in detail, and treat all bank loan consultants (who are supposed to help them) with suspicion?

2) Prior to the crash, investing in a home was considered a solid investment as property values kept rising. Buying a house you "couldn't afford" wasn't a bad idea when the value of said house was projected to rise substantially. Again, should every person looking into buying a house first obtain a knowledge of finance (and macro) to foresee a future housing crisis when nearly every force in the market is telling them no worries?

3) Many of these houses didn't become houses they "couldn't afford" until the financial bottoming-out spread over the entire economy. If people only bought houses with cash, it'd be nearly impossible for the vast majority of people to ever become homeowners. So we get into mortgages assuming little things like "I wont lose my job due to an economic crisis and endure huge stretches of unemployment." The financial crash didn't occur because loanees suddenly went bankrupt en masse.

[Edited on February 28, 2012 at 2:03 PM. Reason : .]

2/28/2012 2:01:37 PM

I'll go ahead and answer #1 on behalf of all the conservatives in TSB.

1) Yes.

2/28/2012 2:12:39 PM

On behalf of the libertarians, I will refer you to price exploration theory. Market clearing prices are achieved without 100% of shoppers actually bothering to shop around. Similarly, workable mortgage terms can be achieved without 100% of shoppers attending Harvard, it just requires several checks and balances which have been and remain broken in this country:

#1 full recourse loans
#2 end of bailout economics
#3 end the tax preferences for debt over equity

2/28/2012 2:30:02 PM

^^ Exactly.

Quote :

"Who bought the houses they couldn't afford making those assets toxic in the first place? There's plenty of blame to go around."

This type of pedantry is entirely too prevalent and is used to further displace blame on to the "poor, unproductive" members of society.

Who should be most informed on loan decisions? Someone who purchases a home or someone whose job it is to analyze risk and determine the feasibility of payment for those they provide mortgages?

2/28/2012 2:32:26 PM

Behind every great fortune is a great crime

2/28/2012 2:41:59 PM

Quote :

"But actually, it's the upper-class people that are less likely to see that people around them need help — and therefore act unethically."

welp, that sentence shows the study is full of shit. if his idea of "ethical" is "helping those around you," then he's already skewed the results to his desired conclusion from the get-go

2/28/2012 2:58:13 PM

^

Quote :

"said Scott Wiltermuth, who researches social status at USC's Marshall School of Business and wasn't involved in the study."

2/28/2012 3:08:36 PM

Quote :

"Do you think that every person who wants to buy a home should personally put the time and effort into learning finance in detail, and treat all bank loan consultants (who are supposed to help them) with suspicion? "

I think that every person who wants to buy a home should understand enough about finances to know when they can't afford the house they're buying. And yes, though should view the bank loan consultants with a degree of suspicion. The bank is trying to sell you a loan. Do you trust the finance guy at the car dealership?

Quote :

"Buying a house you "couldn't afford" wasn't a bad idea when the value of said house was projected to rise substantially. Again, should every person looking into buying a house first obtain a knowledge of finance (and macro) to foresee a future housing crisis when nearly every force in the market is telling them no worries?"

Every person looking to "invest" in a home should understand the phrase "past performance is not indicative of future gains", and also "what goes up must come down". They should also be able to understand that the only real gains in your house come from the property values in your area outpacing the other areas. If all houses appreciate equally, you haven't made any money unless you plan on downsizing.

Quote :

"The financial crash didn't occur because loanees suddenly went bankrupt en masse."

But the financial crash did occur in part because the loanees could only meet their financial obligations if all the stars remained properly aligned, including the adjustable rate mortgage that they signed not adjusting. Hence the assets that their loans were a part of were toxic.

Quote :

"Who should be most informed on loan decisions? Someone who purchases a home or someone whose job it is to analyze risk and determine the feasibility of payment for those they provide mortgages?"

It's not a matter of who should be more informed. And yes, there is plenty of blame on the banks and the loan brokers. But if you are signing your name to a loan that amounts to a decades worth of your salary, you had damn well better be sure that you understand all the risk factors involved. You are responsible for knowing how much you can really afford, you are responsible for knowing that the loan document that says you're not really a retail manager, but a multi millionaire stock broker is a lie. And you should be smart enough to ask yourself "If interest rates are the lowest they've been in decades, why the hell do I want an adjustable rate mortgage?". I mean, people haggle and fight with banks and mortgages for fractions of points and .25% lower interest rates, and then they turn around a sign a 30 year mortgage that can adjust as much as 2 or 3 whole percentage points every couple of years. Anyone should be able to look at that and see where that can go horribly horribly wrong. Hell, even SECU's ARMs with a lifetime limit cap that adjustment at 6%. Can you afford a 6% APR increase on your mortgage? It's your money, it's your life. No one is going to look out for it better than you will.

2/28/2012 6:45:39 PM

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/02/does-being-wealthy-make-you-unethical-new-research-suggests-it-does.ars

The writeup on Ars Technica gives a bit more detail about the set of experiments the researchers ran. Better yet, try reading the actual study if you have institutional access to PNAS: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/21/1118373109

2/28/2012 7:56:09 PM

^
Thanks. Surprised my unity ID still works. Graduated almost 2 years ago.

2/28/2012 8:02:51 PM