
Does being wealthy make you unethical? New research suggests it does - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/02/does-being-wealthy-make-you-unethical-new-research-suggests-it-does.ars
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lurker17
Headline is completely false. Ars Technica made the mistake, and the submitter
copied it. Editors, please fix.

The cited research shows that wealth is a _predictor_ of unethical behavior.
There were no exeperiments investigating the direction of causality, or
whether becoming wealthy correlates to increased unethicality.

Also, the article closes with a complete non-sequitur about Bill Gates, one
the most famously greedy individuals of the 20th Century, whose philanthropy
(which has what to do with ethics, anyway)? only appeared after he accumulated
more money than God.

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tomp
Aside from the idiotic title (maybe some people are simply jerks, but rich
jerks are less scared of consequences of their jerkiness, so they do more of
it), this article describes mostly the studies/experiments that have nothing
to do with real _ethics_.

Cutting of pedestrians? Cheating at an exam for $4 (I doubt that the cash
prizes were more than $5)? Lying at a _role-playing_ job interview? Hardly
behavior that deserves to be qualified as unethical.

Would you call a surgeon who does a _pro-bono_ medical procedure on some poor
child, but cuts of pedestrians, unethical?

Does being not greedy, not taking candy, make a serial killer ethical?

I was once part of an experiment on risk aversion. We could choose to take the
sure bet, and get $3, or a risky bet, and get either $0 or $6 (with 50% chance
for each), and the bet would be repeated twice. I chose to take the risky bet.
I mean, it's just $3, who cares, lets risk for fun! However, if it were
$30,000, I would sure as hell take the sure bet. Lesson of the story:
contrived psychological experiments don't tell you a lot about real life.

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api
... or does having no respect for authority and social constraints make you
wealthy?

It's got a dark side, but there's also a side that's quite defensible. A _lot_
of the social constraints that are placed upon us by society are idiotic: dumb
rules made by and for dumb people. A lot of it is also predatory. A lot of the
rules and recommendations in our society are designed to put you into debt and
servitude. Examples: you _must_ have a college degree (and $50k in debt), you
must buy a home, you need a credit card when you're 18 to establish credit,
etc.

In my experience: do what you're told and you get screwed.

So maybe people with less respect for rules, customs, fads, etc. are more
likely to get ahead?

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tsunamifury
A word about BMWs:

Many people think BMW drivers are jerks because they are rich. The reality is
that BMW drivers are jerks because of the precision and power the vehicle
communicates to the driver -- which lets you be more confident about making
decisive and sudden movements in it.

Maybe the status has some effect as well, but a lot less than the fact that
the BMW just drives better than a Honda Accord and over time you can become
very aggressive because of it.

Ask any long time BMW (or precise sports car) driver and they'll likely
confirm this.

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andylei
maybe its the other around - being unethical makes you wealthy

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kenrikm
For a scientific study it's really lacking facts which makes this is little
more than fluff journalism/science. It states that someone driving a BMW is
more likely to cut someone off then someone driving an economy car. However
did they try giving the economy car driver a BMW and see if there was any
change in his driving habits?

For example I have an Infiniti(G35), a Lexus(IS250) and a Nissan Economy Box
(Versa) and I can tell you from experience I Don't drive the same way in the
120HP Versa that I do in my 300HP (G35 Coupe)

So with that said I could spin the story/data in a different way and have it
be equally as true "Sports car owners more likely to cut people off" Well
thanks Einstein we really needed a study to prove that one.

The logic is so flawed I don't even know where to begin. They know the
difference between correlation and dependence? Venn diagrams? Is seems they
took a set a statistics and molded it into the conclusion they wanted without
establishing a clear cause/effect relationship based on logic. Everything
looks like a nail when all you have is a hammer, and in this case they set out
to prove that wealthy people where unethical so that's what they found.

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jordan0day
_"For a scientific study it's really lacking facts which makes this is little
more than fluff journalism/science."_

Did you actually read the study, or just the piece on ars? There's a link at
the bottom of the article to the actual study, but I don't have a PNAS login
so I can't confirm/deny your assertion. If you're basing your criticism
entirely off of the ars piece, though, I would tell you to pump your brakes a
bit. They summarized the study, which is typical for this sort of journalism,
and in my opinion worthwhile -- as long as the summary matches the actual
findings of the study.

 _"For example I have an Infiniti(G35), a Lexus(IS250) and a Nissan Economy
Box (Versa)"_ I'd probably be able to take your response a little more
seriously if you didn't immediately establish that you likely have a higher
SES (owning three cars, two of which are "luxury" brands), and then fired off
what seems to be a series of kind of defensive attacks on the study.

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quanticle
I think Tyler Cowen has the best critique of this study:

 _We need to be cautious in our interpretation of these results. Of the seven
tests, two of them showed that people driving more expensive cars are more in
a hurry and more likely to cut off others or not yield. That’s not
praiseworthy, but hardly a major moral condemnation. Several of the tests
involved people being asked to imagine they were high class, not actual “high
class” people themselves. To that extent we are testing the lower class view
of the upper classes, noting that I would not use those terms as given. One of
the tests showed that social class did not matter once we adjust for a
person’s attitude toward greed. A positive attitude toward greed is positively
correlated with social class, but it was also easy enough to “prime” the lower
class individuals to feel the same way, suggesting that extreme context
dependence will hold here._

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/02/how...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/02/how-
good-are-the-upper-classes.html)

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gcv
TFA doesn't say anything about education and background here. I'm curious
about whether these results are reproducible for people who earned their
wealth through mostly honest businesses, through inheritance, through various
dealings in third-world countries, for people who majored in philosophy, for
lawyers, for MBAs, for bankers, for hackers, for immigrants, etc.

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jedwhite
I think the study merely predicts that BMW drivers are more likely to be
arsehats.

Make of car is not a good indicator of genuine wealth in America. If you're
looking for a heuristic, then a two year old second hand domestically
manufactured vehicle would be a better indicator. See Thomas Stanley and
William Danko <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door>

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nwj
Tyler Cowen has an interesting comment on this [0]. Generally, it's good
policy to interpret these studies cautiously.

[0]
[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/02/how...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/02/how-
good-are-the-upper-classes.html)

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gtb
So they have academic research to prove nice guys finish last? If at least it
was a Mythbuster research on the topic we would have some explosions.

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Cieplak
This was reported on WTOP radio this morning as, "Wealthier people more likely
to take candy from children."

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ajray
Correlation versus causation, guys. We're better than this.

