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Are Rich People Less Moral?
sciencehabit writes "New research suggests that the upper classes are more likely to behave dishonorably than those lower on the economic spectrum. The rich are more likely to cheat, steal, and even disobey traffic laws than those with less money and power (abstract). Curiously, in one experiment, Prius drivers also behaved badly, regardless of their wealth."
But only because they don't interact with peasants.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Those who lie, cheat, steal, and ignore any law they can get away with are more likely to strike it rich. Also, prius drivers are douchebags.
It's just easier to get rich if you're amoral to begin with.
It would explain Congress.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”
Napoleon Bonaparte
It's the sense of entitlement (perhaps appropriate for some rich people...not even remotely appropriate for the Prius drivers) that does it. When someone sees their job/life/goal as being "important", they figure that they should be "allowed" a bit more leeway. I doubt it's a conscious decision on their parts (at least for most), but I've noticed the same thing: The higher up on the totem pole you get, you notice an increase in the undeserved entitlements that are claimed.
It's not that they're less moral, it's that they have the resources to deal with the consequences, and take a calculated risk.
A speeding ticket is a lot more of a penalty to a pizza delivery guy than it is to Mitt Romney.
Of course they do. This should surprise nobody.
Generally speaking, a person whose actions are bound by respect for moral and legal institutions is going to have trouble succeeding against a person whose actions are not bound to such considerations (or only loosely bound.) Run this model several million times, and you end up with a small, powerful group of people who are, comparatively speaking, less moral than the large, less powerful group of people they were willing to step on to get to the top.
The only place where cheaters never win is fiction. Everywhere else, they tend to run the show.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Which is it? Wealthy people are more likely to become dicks, or the kind of people who would openly behave this poorly tend to become wealthy? I'm curious as to whether or not having large amounts of money corrupts an otherwise mild-mannered person, or if the personality type/living environment/etc that leads to the accumulation of wealth also tends to be those that would already cause someone act like a douche, regardless of financial status.
How do you think they got rich in the first place? With honesty and self-sacrifice?
Usually, with using Steve Jobs as an extreme example, willing to do what it takes to succeed, even if doing those things hurts others
I'm rather certain that's the way nature works, the big lion didn't get that way by excusing himself from eating a hundred zebras to eat nuts and berries instead.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In the book "Freakonomics", about how the statistical tools economists use can bring some light to other areas of social study, the tale is told of a guy who ran a business model of dropping off bagels at office coffee rooms around town, with a voluntary-contribution box, and kept meticulous records for many years of his repayment rate. Turns out the upper floors (as in, upper management) and near corner offices and so on, had the lowest rate.
The authors were careful about drawing conclusions, though they entertained by speculating - was it "have to run to my important meeting, that's more important than digging around for change, my time is worth $900/hour", or was it just a "sense of entitlement"?
This may tip the needle towards "self-entitled bastards", though it remains speculation, of course, not conclusion.
The Prius thing may indicate another reason for being a "self-entitled jerk", of course: environmental smugness. Now I'm just TOTALLY speculating, obviously, but I'd add a data point: my rotten self, and all the rotten cyclists like me. We disobey traffic laws with wild abandon, we're notorious for it. And bikes are vastly more environmental (and, better yet, non-road-space consuming) than Priuses. I am shamelessly anti-authoritarian on a bike the way I am not in a car.
I claim, in my own head (never had to try it on a cop, and don't plan to) that I coast through stop signs and so forth because of the vast importance of Conserving Momentum. And the roadway just "owes" me a little slack because I take up so little of it. And I'm only risking my own damfool neck, I can at most cause others a dent. Or something. If you can get self-entitled by contributing to the common weal that little, imagine how much you get from doing work others value at $900 per hour...
It's about perceived superiority. There's an inherent tendency to be dismissive of others we perceive to be 'inferior' in some way - whether the differentiator is wealth, intelligence, physical prowess, popularity, or even moral righteousness (which is likely to be higher among Prius owners). It takes a fair amount of empathy and moral awareness to overcome this inclination, and the common perception is that these 'softer' skills are much less common among the highly wealthy - so they become the standard-bearers for this dynamic.
An object at rest cannot be stopped!
A little bit. Just my own $0.02.... I used to own an engineering company. We were mostly based on repeat business and word of mouth, and had a steady clientele. We did OK. Our typical hours were four 9s and a 4 and most of us would be gone by Friday afternoon. We had a reputation for being fair to our clients and charging a fair price. I would not accept shady clients or do anything that was unethical.
One of my major competitors was a workaholic with the instincts of a jackal; you were a disappointment if you worked less than 60 hours a week, for which he paid you your base salary. He worked probably 80 to 100 hours a week and took his laptop on vacations. He spent 3 hours a week with his kids; one hour per child. He had a reputation for being voraciously money hungry and would skirt the law on almost everything as long as there was profit in it. He had no problem cheating clients, employees, or the government.
He consistently made far more money than I did. He didn't care what his reputation was or how much damage he did to his family or the lives of his employees or the community. He had no friends that I know of.
I on the other hand still keep in touch with my former employees, sleep well at night, and live a modestly successful life.
So yes, from my own limited experience, you get richer than me by being morally corrupt.
Counter-example: the Koch bros., Murdoch.
When money stops meaning something, either you decide to do good, or the hunger is still here, and you need to fill it with power.
Having gone to school with the rich, I admit that they wank hard.
Money doesn't spoil character, money reveals character.
Most people haven't fully gauged their inert moral capabilities, I'd suspect. Most of it is adapted and constructed, and once people get rich and have access to power and independace from others, it's these flaky concepts of morality that disintegrate.
Someone with real character and moral concepts that one does not neccesarly derive from the need to be nice to other people due to scarce resources is more likely to maintain his values, wether he is rich or not.
It's for this reason that I'm very curious about what would happen with my behaviour if I, for whatever reason, should someday turn rich. I like to believe that only little of my character and my behaviour towards other people would change, but never the less I'd be curious to know if that actually is the case.
However I do believe that most people reveal an underdeveloped character when exposed to certain amounts of wealth over longer periods of time. Today education througout the world rarely focuses on values independant of economic wealth - which shows how poor humanity actually is.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I certainly have noticed this. I live in San Francisco, and I count on average 1 prius parked on the street for each city block I drive. They are everywhere. I am continually frustrated with these drivers because they a) Drive overly defensively, to the point where you cannot make normal predictions about driving behavior. b) The cars have poor acceleration, so the cars always appear to go very slowly for no good reason. c) I have seen more Prius drivers fail to use their turn signals. I do not know why this is.
That would be more communistic. Also, be careful what you wish for. On a global scale, you may well discover that you are the 1%.
Maybe it's related to partially to Prosperity Theology. "If I'm blessed by God with all this prosperity then what I want to do must be morally right."
Warren Buffet has gotten much less ethical in his old age. He used to enable businesses and growth. Now he is advocating destructive social trends in the hopes of getting away with the largest tax evasion scheme in history.
Citation please?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
There is this fascinating experiment. It occurred in Israel. The setting is this: there is a day-care centre at which people come to pick their kids at a fixed hour. Now some people are late, and there are no other consequences than the reprobation of the staff.
Comes in the economists. And they say "incentives matter!". And lo, a small fine is introduced for being late.
And now many more people are late, for the fine was too low: social pressure had kept people in line, but the small fine told them being late was no big deal. And so the fine is removed.
And people are still late, because now, the value of being late has been set, and it is low.
Moral of the story: if someone is a dick, don't let them get away with it. Politely voice your disapproval. Social pressure keeps people in line. And I would bet, even bankers: whatever they think, they cannot buy the respect of people around them. No-one can. An nice person is a nice person, and a dick a dick. Treat people accordingly to their behaviour, and ignore their social status.
At the end of the day, we are all dead. When you die, having been fair with the people you met means you leave a slightly better Earth.
Warren Buffet has gotten much less ethical in his old age. He used to enable businesses and growth. Now he is advocating destructive social trends in the hopes of getting away with the largest tax evasion scheme in history.
Citation please?
Don't you listen to talk radio every day and night? How do you stay informed?
To quote the ever smug Leona Helmesly, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes..." (And why is it that the most nauseating psychopaths like Helmesly, Milken, Fleiss, et. al always sport that stupid grin that just cries for a fist.)
Surely anyone who's had contact with wealthy people have noticed their underlying assumption of "I am above all rules. Those are for the little people."
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
This is nothing but an attempt by a few self-interested college professors to apply the "It's Science (tm) so it must be True!" concept to the current zeitgeist of class warfare nonsense.
"psychologist Paul Piff of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues devised a series of tests, working with groups of 100 to 200 Berkeley undergraduates or adults recruited online. Subjects completed a standard gauge of their social status, placing an X on one of 10 rungs of a ladder representing their income, education, and how much respect their jobs might command compared with other Americans."
And we honestly expect this to be a representative sample of "rich people"? How many CEOs and entrepaneurs have the time to fill out online surveys and then report to UC Berkeley to roll dice and steal candies from a jar? The survey is essentially attracting the same sort of people who click on "WORK FROM HOME AND EARN $10,000 A DAY!!!1!!" banner ads, not Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. That these people are self-identifying their wealth and social status further introduces significant bias into the experiment.
"The team's findings suggest that privilege promotes dishonesty. For example, upper-class subjects were more likely to cheat. After five apparently random rolls of a computerized die for a chance to win an online gift certificate, three times as many upper-class players reported totals higher than 12—even though, unbeknownst to them, the game was rigged so that 12 was the highest possible score."
We've just established that the selection criteria for identifying "rich people" was flawed. It's not surprising to me that the people who would lie in an online survey and say that they're "rich" would then lie again to try to win a prize.
"Piff says the study may shed light on the hotly debated topic of income inequality. "Our findings suggest that if the pursuit of self-interest goes unchecked, it may result in a vicious cycle: self-interest leads people to behave unethically, which raises their status, which leads to more unethical behavior and inequality.""
Self-interest leading to unethical behavior? Like, perhaps, a college professor with an agenda perverting the scientific method by creating a horribly flawed, biased study and trying to pass it off as fact?
FTFA:
>working with groups of 100 to 200 Berkeley undergraduates or adults recruited online.
Ya gotta be kidding me.
There is, of course, the recent research that points out that US-American psychology is, largely, a profile of the US-American undergrad population (ie, the population that are easily available to find, to study).
That said, if you choose Berkeley undergrads, then you're going to get results that match them. Berkeley is a large anonymous state institution, where an undergrad has every incentive to cheat, and where only the third incident of plagarism has any chance of repercussions. (In pactice, GSIs and many professors are unlikely to report plagarism, no only because of the paperwork, but because it's likely to have negative repercussions for them).
Change this context to Stanford or the East Coast Ivies, etc, and you've got a very different system. Getting caught cheating or plagarizing-- once-- at a small college or many of the Ivies, is a death sentence-- immediate explusion, and if you do choose to come back in a year, you're going to be a paraih among your peers and under very close scrutiny.
My guess is this study, like so much social science, isn't speciifc and precise enough to say anything.
Whereas the Koch brothers have grown more ethical, because they want to remove all those awful unethical regulations on businesses.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
Up to a point, then they become moral again because it no longer means as much. I think it occurs once you get past the billionaire mark: Examples: Warren Buffet, Bill Gates...
First, there are just as many counter examples Steve Jobs, Larry Elison, Donald Trump, etc, etc...
Secondly, I don't think Mr Buffett nor Mr Gates are particularly moral, they seem to be really just doing this to "pad" their future historical biography (not unlike JD Rockefeller).
Apparently, Mr Buffett wanted to give his money for his wife to donate as she desired (as payback for his "cheating", well it's more complicated than that, but I digress). Since his wife died earlier than Mr Buffett and he didn't seem to trust his long term "girlfriend/housekeeper" with that role, he decided just do matching donations w/ the BMG Foundation with all that money he was saving for his wife. On the other hand, The BMG Foundation's investment philosophy (for the money they haven't spent yet as opposed to the money they are putting to use) is to maximize return which often put it at odds with the same people they are trying to help (high pollution companies, or big-pharma companies). A common gripe about the BMGF is that they seem to only pick-up high-profile healthcare issues which sometimes divert attention to basic healthcare which is also needed by the same population groups. Also, as I understand it, the BMG Foundation also isn't structured to last forever either. All money must be spent before the 50th anniversary of Bill and Melinda's death, so they basically have to spend it all pretty quickly and after the causes they are funding dry up, well, that's all they wrote...
Not saying that Mr Gates and/or Mr Buffett are moral or not, but I don't think these examples show that billionaires either as a group or as individuals become particularly more moral because of their inflated monetary status. In fact, these particular examples seem to show that for some, money is just a NOP. On the other hand, one might argue that they appear less moral that the person that spends 50% of their time helping a neighbor, or stops investing their money with companies that pollute the environment and perhaps a bit narcissistic for wanting specific credit for their donation of resources.
for a long time i thought the rich were a result of poor morals.
Is it really cause or effect?
Look at the mormons and their reputation for honest that propelled thier businesses in the previous century.
Likewise,
As an englishman in south america this (previously especially) brought alot of trust.
I have changed classes from having no money to having comparitively much more. I've felt a change from lowest class with no power to feeling much more powerful and influential. The power corrupts. It's the power that corrupts for sure.
But what about money?
There's a thing in black magic that says symbols can impart a psychological effect... Doesn't really fit my worldview... But it's an idea that's come up many times independently through cultures through history.
On a mundane way don't you find talking about money attracts bad luck in relationships? Like it kills the love in the same way as talking politics. Perhaps that's the reasoning on the misogeny on division of roles to single bread winner for each family... one person handling the money. What if it's true? what if money really carries a psycic imprint in it as it is transferred and even thought about?
Ok, i get bored easily but i can see how it might seem this way
A blog I run for the wealth
or Compassion.
"It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
(Matthew 19:24)
"But the root of all these evils is the love of money, and there are some who have desired it and have erred from the faith and have brought themselves many miniseries."
(Timothy 6:10)
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
How do you think they got rich?
You find it referenced here and there. It is notably reported in the freakonomics book.
reported on page 6 of the following PDF:
http://www.tinbergen.nl/ti-events/tilectures2007/gneezy.pdf
Well, at the very least it doesn't affect me as much.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"In one test, subjects were asked to compare themselves with people at the top or the bottom of the social scale (Donald Trump or a homeless person, for example.)"
Americans: mistaking money for class since the 18th century.
In my experience the people who want money enough to be "morally corrupt" also put in a lot of hours to the exclusion of their families. To them money becomes the driving force. I've seen guys break up with girlfriends, walk away from a wedding and get divorced because they loved money and work more than people. That to me is "morally corrupt".
Anyway, I don't begrudge him his money; he's earned it and I hope he's happy with the life he's picked. I am with mine.
The first of those is misunderstood, the 'eye of the needle' was a term that described that back door to a walled city - the door that would be used after dark when the main gate was closed.
Another version of this myth still being perpetuated upon the innocent by Sunday school teachers and holy land tour guides. It used to be said (as early as the C15th) that there was a gate in Jerusalem that was called the eye of the needle. Unfortunately the historical and archaeological record reveals no such gate (if memory serves me correctly there were 5 gates in Jerusalem in Jesus' time).
What you are actually dealing here is either a simple translation error or perhaps a pun and a pun which surprisingly works both in Aramaic (and Hebrew) as well as Greek. GML is both the name for the Hebrew letter (equivalent of G), for a camel and for rope. In Koine Greek the word for 'camel' is kamelos while the word for ship's rope is kamilos. Considering that vowel shift was occurring between iota and eta, the ambiguity was greater in speech.. See also here.
In Aramaic GML is pointed the same way for both as gamla, so when Jesus spoke he literally said "it is easier to thread a ship's rope through the eye of a needle" and "it is easier to force a camel through the eye of a needle," at the same time.
Moreover if we take this statement together with Luke 6:25; Matt 6:24 (also Luke 16:13); etc. there can be no doubting the import of Jesus' words: If you are rich, if you pursue wealth even, you are fucked for all eternity. ... unless you're like Warren Buffet or something and leave the sweets for the little kids ...
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
It's a typical case of extrinsic/intrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation is when you don't use incentives.
People will likely behave as they believe they should. In this case, they try to show to their children that they are good parents, so they are not late.
Extrinsic motivation appears when you introduce incentives.
The problem with incentives is that once you introduced them, abolishing incentives make people do even less effort than before.
It has been verified with a lot of different studies.
Prius drivers also behaved badly
Wouldn't that be obvious?
Regular people can't afford a Prius
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
(La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.)
Anatole France
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
The rich are more likely to cheat,
Those sons of bitches.
steal,
Really, quite uncivil of them.
and even disobey traffic laws
Well NOW they've gone too far dammit!
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
I have worked in multiple positions mostly as helpers to the rich and the elite e.g. assistant in family offices, manager in michelin-starred restaurants etc. I have noticed the rich and the elite tend to believe law and regulations do not relate to them - that these rules are simply used to regulate the masses. In other words, they do not think they behave dishonourably or dishonestly - they simply believe they are different and that they are entitled to these privileges. Sure not every single one of them think like that, but I noticed majority of them do. Just my two cents.
In a room full of fire, the strongest person will curry the weakest one.
Only in some of the less civilised parts of India, I believe.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Money translatese to power which implies privilege, and privilege implies that laws and conventions are somehow not for them, so the best thing for society is to level the playing field and increase the wealth of everyone, or say foster programs that grow the middle class at the expense of the ultra wealthy. Our lives in general will be improved and our country will again be the envy of the world, not the envy of the rich and powerful.