Cheat, lie, break the law? Chances are, you’re rich

[MiddleClassCentrist]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/cheat-lie-break-the-law-chances-are-youre-rich/article2351690/

The wealthy really are different from everyone else: They’re more likely to cheat, lie, and break the law.

At least that’s the unflattering conclusion of a team of professors from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and the University of California, Berkeley, who ran a battery of tests involving more than 1,000 people, seeking to answer the question of whether being rich or poor influenced ethical behaviour.

More related to this story

In results from seven separate studies, they found a consistent tendency among those they termed “upper-class” to be more likely to break the law while driving, take valued goods from others, lie in negotiations, cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize and endorse unethical behaviour at work.

The reason for the ethical difference was simple, according to the paper being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a leading U.S. science journal. Wealthier people are more likely to have an attitude that greed is good.

The question of social class and ethics has long intrigued researchers and has created a lively, if obscure, field of academic research.

At first glance, it might seem more likely that poorer people would be more tempted to cheat or break the law, in order to improve their lot in life. But a growing body of research is coming to the opposite conclusion – that it’s people at the top of the income scale for whom honesty, integrity, and generosity seem to be a challenge.

In the United States, for instance, despite the perception that the rich are great philanthropists, data show that upper-class households donate a smaller proportion of their incomes to charity than do lower-class families. Other research has found that those who are well off have a reduced concern for others.

But one of the paper’s authors, Stéphane Côté, professor of organizational behaviour and psychology at the Rotman School, cautioned against making blanket assumptions about people based on class alone.

“We’re definitely not suggesting that any upper-class person … is going to be less ethical than every lower-class person. You need to be cautious in terms of applying these findings to predict the behaviour of a single individual,” he said.

Testing people for ethics based on class might seem like a challenge, but the researchers for the science journal paper devised a series of ingenious tests to investigate behaviours.

In one case, they monitored a busy San Francisco four-way stop, and had observers hidden from sight check which drivers obeyed the law stipulating that vehicles approaching the intersection yield to a car already making the crossing. The observers tracked the make, age, and conditions of cars, using them as a proxy for class. High-status vehicles such as Mercedes were considered the provenance of the rich, and those driving them were about three times more likely to cut in than those in less flashy cars.

The researchers also conducted laboratory experiments on people who had been asked to classify themselves as to their class status, to test lying and cheating.

In one test involving throws of an electronic dice, the researchers rigged computers to allow only low scores. Participants were told that those getting higher scores would have more chances to win $50 cash. They then tracked who lied about the results, and found that people in a higher social class displayed higher levels of cheating and more positive attitudes toward greed.

The researchers zeroed in on greed as the operative factor through another experiment that assessed the willingness of people to engage in unethical behaviour at work, such as stealing cash, receiving bribes, or overcharging customers.

Edited February 28, 2012 by MiddleClassCentrist

[olpfan1]

Harper loves using the word "ethical" .. obviously he is over compensating due to his lack of ethics

[Shady]

What a ridiculous study. I guess the Occupy movement wasn't effective enough, so an "academic" study was needed to try to paint successful people as cheaters and law breakers. We can all play that game...

Are you a terrorist? Chances are, you're Muslim.

[Bonam]

Studies in the "social sciences" can always find, without exception, exactly what the researchers want to find.

[TheNewTeddy]

I don't think I've seen such a biased topic headline on a forum in a very very long time.

I mean this is the kindest way: if you want people to read your post, try not to make the headline something they'll laugh at. I've not read the post and I have no plans to because you shot your own credibility to bits with your headline.

[wugo]

These studies quite bizarre. I do not believe in it at all

[Topaz]

I can see were this could be true for SOME rich people. The rich who haven't earned it but inherited all their wealth, would have that attitiude more. The power of freedom to have anything or do anything with the wealth. Lets face it, in North America, it isn't the poor bring in the guns and the illegal drugs.

[Guest Manny]

What does it really take to be "rich"? Most common that you would have to steal form others, use lies and manipulate situations to your own benefit. That is the psychology that leads to being wealthy. There has to be a sense of arrogance, that you are "above" others, and so you are justified in taking what you want from them. To be really rich, one has to be ruthless.

[MiddleClassCentrist]

I don't think I've seen such a biased topic headline on a forum in a very very long time.

I mean this is the kindest way: if you want people to read your post, try not to make the headline something they'll laugh at. I've not read the post and I have no plans to because you shot your own credibility to bits with your headline.

I don't care if you read my post. It was straight from the Globe and Mail.

Maybe the subtitle was my doing, but I was just making a connection to our current government.

Either way, your loss not mine.

[Boges]

Actually the few wealthy people I do know, I find, are the most generous and thoughtful.

This is just more hatred from the left.

[TheNewTeddy]

I don't care if you read my post. It was straight from the Globe and Mail.

"The rich are also more likely to be Conservative... coincidence?"

was not in the globe and mail.

[MiddleClassCentrist]

"The rich are also more likely to be Conservative... coincidence?"

was not in the globe and mail.

Have you not noticed the trend in unethical and immoral behaviour of conservatives in the news?

Making phone calls suggesting that a Liberal was retiring... (They fully admitted this one)

Making phony election calls to annoy the opposition supporters.

Making phony election calls to make people go to the wrong polls.

Spending money on Gazebo's.

...

To name a few.

[TheNewTeddy]

None of these scandals have impacted in the polls, which tells me, rightly or wrongly, that people just don't care, or, that they are willing to tolerate it.

The NDP elects a new leader March 24th? and if this robo business goes on, the NDP might find itself in first in the polls.

[capricorn]

The NDP elects a new leader March 24th? and if this robo business goes on, the NDP might find itself in first in the polls.

Maybe.

We're really off topic but here goes anyway.

Imagine for a moment. By-elections are ordered and the Conservatives lose their majority. The opposition parties get GG approval to form a government. Now that would put the NDP in the driver's seat simply based on the difference of the number of seats between the opps. Faced with the real possibility of the NDP actually taking control of the country which party do you think the centrist Liberals in those by-elections would run to?

[RB]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/cheat-lie-break-the-law-chances-are-youre-rich/article2351690/

I hope the researchers also zoomed in on other variables influencing such "tardy" behaviours of the rich people as the rich is expected to exhibit some of this behaviour - example driving a fancy car - the "poor" yield to the fancy car whether it is time to go or not at the stop

Edited February 29, 2012 by RB