A new study done, in part, by the University of California, Berkeley examines whether the rich or poor are more likely to cheat.
According to the Globe and Mail, the rich win! They’re more likely to cheat, steal be rude drivers and engage in unethical behavior:
The answer, from a new academic paper that looked at class and ethical behaviour, may seem a surprise. People who are well off have more of a proclivity to lie in negotiations and cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize. They’re also more inclined to engage in unethical behaviour at work, such as stealing money, receiving bribes and overcharging customers.
The academics conducted seven laboratory and real-life tests involving more than 1,000 people to check out whether the rich or poor are more ethically challenged.
“The results of these seven studies provide an answer to the question that initiated this investigation: is society’s nobility in fact its most noble actors? Relative to lower-class individuals, individuals from upper-class backgrounds behaved more unethically” in both laboratory and real-life settings, the researchers said in the paper, which is being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed science journal.
One test the researchers devised was to watch California intersections to see whether drivers of high-end cars were more likely to cut off other drivers or fail to obey rules giving pedestrians the right of way.
Those driving luxury cars were far more likely to disobey the traffic law or illegally cut off other drivers on the road, according to the researchers.
Can anyone offer an explanation for this?
