Folk wisdom runs both ways on wealth and honesty, which is usually a sign nobody has measured it. One research group built seven studies around the question. Two watched real drivers to see who broke the law at the wheel. Five moved into the lab, covering unethical decisions, taking valued goods, lying in a negotiation, cheating for a prize and endorsing bad conduct at work. Which way did it fall?
Upper-class participants behaved less ethically, in all seven studies. They were likelier to break the law while driving, and likelier to take goods belonging to someone else. They lied more in a negotiation, cheated more for a better shot at a prize, and more readily called unethical behavior at work acceptable. carried part of the difference. Not all of it, but a measurable share.
Opinion about wealth and honesty has always run both ways, which is usually a sign nobody has put a number on it. Seven studies in one paper set out to do that, using two kinds of evidence that answer different objections.
Two studies used of real traffic, recording who broke the law at the wheel. Upper-class drivers did so more often. Field data of that sort controls very little, but nobody inside it knew they were in a study, which removes the worry that people are performing for a researcher.
Five laboratory studies then covered the behaviors a road cannot show. Upper-class participants showed more unethical decision-making tendencies and took more valued goods belonging to others. They lied more in a negotiation, cheated more to improve their chances at a prize, and more readily endorsed unethical behavior at work. The pattern held across all five.
The mediation analysis is the part worth arguing about. Attitudes toward greed worked as a , meaning the class difference shrank once those attitudes were taken into account. Partly is the operative word there. And because the authors measured the mediator rather than manipulating it, that step is a correlation sitting inside an otherwise sturdy set of studies, all of them American and all from one group.
wat. On the road and in the laboratory alike, higher social class went with more rule-breaking, and a friendlier attitude to greed explained part of the gap.
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It points the explanation at something changeable. The claim is not that wealth corrupts a person outright, but that a friendlier view of greed travels with and does part of the work.
How do we know?
Piff and colleagues ran seven studies combining naturalistic observation of drivers with laboratory tasks, then tested whether favorable attitudes toward greed accounted for the class difference.
What is still unknown
Seven studies from one research group, with modest effects and American samples, and greed was identified as a mediator by correlation rather than by manipulating it.
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Where to next
How far can a rule against harming living things be taken?ethics