Study on unethical behavior: The richer, the nastier

Rich people deceive more often, enrich themselves for their own benefit and even steal candy from children. What sounds like a collection of clichés has been proven in a study. Researchers looked at the behavior of people from different social classes and came to the conclusion that rich people often behave more unethically in everyday life.

At first glance, this insight seems more funny than serious, but it has important implications for our society. That is exactly the idea behind the satirical Ig Nobel Prize that has just been awarded. This honors curious research that first makes you laugh, then makes you think. This year, among many other works, this study from 2012 was also crowned for the Department of Economics.

Social psychologist Paul Piff and his team conducted seven different experiments to observe behavior. The hypothesis is that rich people should exhibit higher levels of unethical behavior because they have more positive attitudes toward greed. Psychological research has shown that greed breeds unethical behavior.

Their results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). They observed that rich people more often gave way to others at busy intersections and were more likely to not let pedestrians cross the street.

In another experiment, rich people took more from a jar full of candy intended for children. They also faked a higher score in a game in an attempt to increase their chances of winning.

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The researchers explain this unethical behavior with structural but also psychological reasons. With increasing money and increasing power, one's own independence increases. At the same time, however, this leads to the needs of other people being neglected. Egocentric tendencies, such as exaggerating one's own interests, also promote this behavior.

Although the study only deals with sweets or traffic violations, these observations have consequences for our social coexistence. The sweets symbolize an increasing tendency in our society to put one's own needs above those of others, according to psychologist Paul Piff.

It also shows that greed is not equally pronounced in every social group. The connection between social class and behavior is not categorically predetermined, the authors explain, but rather a result of the society in which we live. So it can also be changed.