Fodder for the Culture Wars
September 8, 2013
Perhaps, like me, you’ve seen something about the study which found that drivers of really nice cars are less likely to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks than those driving hoop ties. Now, you can get details on this and seven other studies in, “Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior” (PDF) from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Perhaps this explains some of the marketing methods in use by certain search, analytics, and content processing vendors?
The paper was created by a team from UC Berkeley’s psychology department and the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, and edited by the University of Michigan’s Richard E. Nisbett . The foreword abstract summarizes:
“Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 8) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.”
Wow, that is quite the indictment. The paper describes each study, then launches into an extended discussion on the results. It does include caveats, like the acknowledgement that some rich folks are actually quite generous and that some poor people are jerks (I am paraphrasing.) It also calls for further research on the subject. Will more studies confirm what many understand on a gut level? More importantly, is there anything we can do to encourage the rich-and-powerful to pay less attention to their bank accounts and more to their consciences?
Cynthia Murrell, September 08, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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