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Study finds that rich people ARE different

kenny

Super_Ideal_Rock
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By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times
February 27, 2012, 7:07 p.m.

The rich really are different from the rest of us, scientists have found — they are more apt to commit unethical acts because they are more motivated by greed.

People driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Berkeley researchers observed. Those findings led to a series of experiments that revealed that people of higher socioeconomic status were also more likely to cheat to win a prize, take candy from children and say they would pocket extra change handed to them in error rather than give it back.

Because rich people have more financial resources, they're less dependent on social bonds for survival, the Berkeley researchers reported Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As a result, their self-interest reigns and they have fewer qualms about breaking the rules.

"If you occupy a more insular world, you're less likely to be sensitive to the needs of others," said study lead author Paul Piff, who is studying for a doctorate in psychology.

But before those in the so-called 99% start feeling ethically superior, consider this: Piff and his colleagues also discovered that anyone's ethical standards could be prone to slip if they suddenly won the lottery and joined the top 1%.

"There is a strong notion that when people don't have much, they're really looking out for themselves and they might act unethically," said Scott Wiltermuth, who researches social status at USC's Marshall School of Business and wasn't involved in the study. "But actually, it's the upper-class people that are less likely to see that people around them need help — and therefore act unethically."

In earlier studies, Piff documented that wealthy people were less likely to act generously than relatively impoverished people. With this research, he hoped to find out whether wealthy people would also prioritize self-interest if it meant breaking the rules.

The driving experiments offered a way to test the hypothesis "naturalistically," he said. Trained observers hid near a downtown Berkeley intersection and noted the makes, model years and conditions of bypassing cars. Then they recorded whether drivers waited their turn.

It turned out that people behind the wheels of the priciest cars were four times as likely as drivers of the least expensive cars to enter the intersection when they didn't have the right of way. The discrepancy was even greater when it came to a pedestrian trying to exercise a right of way.

There is a significant correlation between the price of a car and the social class of its driver, Piff said. Still, how fancy a car looks isn't a perfect indicator of wealth.

So back in the laboratory, Piff and his colleagues conducted five more tests to measure unethical behavior — and to connect that behavior to underlying attitudes toward greed.

For instance, the team used a standard questionnaire to get college students to assess their own socioeconomic status and asked how likely subjects were to behave unethically in eight different scenarios.

In one of the quandaries, students were asked to imagine that they bought coffee and a muffin with a $10 bill but were handed change for a $20. Would they keep the money?

In another hypothetical scenario, students realized their professor made a mistake in grading an exam and gave them an A instead of the B they deserved. Would they ask for a grade change?

The patterns from the road held true in the lab — those most willing to engage in unethical behavior were the ones with the highest social status.

One possible explanation was that wealthy people are simply more willing to acknowledge their selfish side. But that wasn't the issue here. When test subjects of any status were asked to imagine themselves at a high social rank, they helped themselves to more candies from a jar they were told was meant for children in another lab.

Another experiment recruited people from Craigslist to play a "game of chance" that the researchers had rigged. People who reported higher social class were more likely to have favorable attitudes toward greed — and were more likely to cheat at the game.

"The patterns were just so consistent," Piff said. "It was very, very compelling."

Piff, who is writing a paper about attitudes toward the Occupy movement, said that his team had been accused of waging class warfare from time to time.

"Berkeley has a certain reputation, so yeah, we get that," he said.

But rather than vilify the wealthy, Piff said, he hopes his work leads to policies that help bridge the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Acts as simple as watching a movie about childhood poverty seem to encourage people of all classes to help others in need, he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-0228-greed-20120228,0,5965885.story?track=icymi
 
I'm sure nobody here considers themselves to be rich.

The rich are always folks richer than I.
 
kenny|1330462518|3136603 said:
I'm sure nobody here considers themselves to be rich.

The rich are always folks richer than I.
only the rich can afford colored stones... ;))
 
Dancing Fire|1330463202|3136612 said:
kenny|1330462518|3136603 said:
I'm sure nobody here considers themselves to be rich.

The rich are always folks richer than I.
only the rich can afford colored stones... ;))

Oh but mine are so tiny.
... and I only have a cheapo steel and gold Rolex. ;)) :bigsmile:
 
Ha, this would explain the woman driving a Mercedes G Wagon honked at me and gesticulated wildly at me for daring to cross in front of her at a pedestrian crosswalk when she was stopped at a stop sign. Don't worry, I had some hand gestures and words of my own for her. :saint:
 
Hi,

I say, lets go over to the car thread and see what make car everyone is driving? We'll see whose rich and enjoy the denials.

Annette
 
I don't have a car, so I guess I'm poor! :tongue:
 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2011/12/30/what-the-rich-people-really-drive/

Many rich people drive "regular" cars. And many people who cannot afford it drive luxury or status automobiles.
Maybe this says something more about people who drive expensive cars than rich people, or people who "imagine" they are wealthy than people who actually are.

Actually acording to my husband he feels people are different behind the wheel than face to face or a pedestrian, as he puts it "once a person gets behind the wheel they become an a**hole".
 
This then makes me wonder if being rich is relative.

What someone considers rich may not be what someone else considers rich. Things that make you go hmmm.....
 
kenny|1330462242|3136599 said:
By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times
February 27, 2012, 7:07 p.m.


People driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Berkeley researchers observed.

I don't know about knocking soft ice cream out of the hands of children or anything but this is interesting. When you're driving a really nice car like a performance variant Audi or BMW of course you want to be a jerk. Because you can. You can pass people at will, blah, blah. Some people love driving, and they'll test the limits of a performance car. Not that I would ever do anything like that. :cheeky:
 
That article is a load of bullduty. People who were taught to be kind and considerate will be that way regardless of their net worth or what they drive.
 
Madam Bijoux|1330472991|3136756 said:
That article is a load of bullduty. People who were taught to be kind and considerate will be that way regardless of their net worth or what they drive.

Yes it is!

This is a very dangerous idea that the rich are "different". It quickly gets into "blue blood", "divine right of kings", and all kinds of other anachronistic and/or fascist nonsense IMO.
 
Imdanny|1330473961|3136772 said:
Madam Bijoux|1330472991|3136756 said:
That article is a load of bullduty. People who were taught to be kind and considerate will be that way regardless of their net worth or what they drive.

Yes it is!

This is a very dangerous idea that the rich are "different". It quickly gets into "blue blood", "divine right of kings", and all kinds of other anachronistic and/or fascist nonsense IMO.

No--the idea that the rich are different (which that article and study certainly did not prove) quickly leads to the Russian Revolution, Chinese Revolution, Pol Pot, etc.
And the rich are defined definitely as "richer than me" or even 'appears to be richer than me' or just simply 'has something that I want'.
Which would put a lot of us on this board in serious trouble.

Societies that believe in 'blue blood' and 'divine right of kings' don't think the rich are better--in fact they generally despise those who are 'just' rich and not 'well-born', which is a completely different thing. And they are definitely not 'fascist'. Both Hitler and Mussolini, who are the definition of fascist, did not like aristocrats and had little admiration for money--they valued what they thought was 'correct thinking' and in Hitler's case, had racist ideas which are again not at all the same as simply valuing money or thinking those with money are 'better.'
 
Imdanny|1330473961|3136772 said:
Madam Bijoux|1330472991|3136756 said:
That article is a load of bullduty. People who were taught to be kind and considerate will be that way regardless of their net worth or what they drive.

Yes it is!

This is a very dangerous idea that the rich are "different". It quickly gets into "blue blood", "divine right of kings", and all kinds of other anachronistic and/or fascist nonsense IMO.

Yes, generalizing about groups of people is usually problematic since there are always exceptions to even true generalizations.
That's why I was surprised to see the Los Angeles times reporting such institutions doing this research.
 
Black Jade, are we talking about elitism and elites and whether those elites are "different"? Then what we mean is that the rich are (it is proposed) different in their brain chemistry vis a vis having empathy, being willing to cheat, being sociopaths, or what have you. The mob can kill the elite (French revolution) or the other way around (Hitler). I like to think, in fact I do believe that all people share humanity in common. For this and many other reasons, I find "studies" that say things ike this disingenuous to say the least. I think we both agree the study is BS? Let's agree to agree, if so.
 
I call BS. If you drove a POS car of course you wouldn't go when it wasn't your right of way. Your car might not clear the intersection. If you drove a performance car or a modded car, you would floor it just for the rush.

The article is odd though... how people seem to change ethical orientation when just told to imagine they were rich. Doesn't that sound like they are being asked "imagine you were a rich doink, how would you act?"

From what I know, the haves and have nots and whatevers aren't the issue. I think it is more the givers and the give nots. Lets have more givers.
 
This study was conducted at UC Berkeley. Those "scientists" were probably UC Berkeley undergrads. I went to UCB. There's an anti-establishment bias that's pervasive at UCB, and it probably found its way into the study somehow.... Just sayin'...
 
Yes, all science is wrong and biased and there couldn't possibly be a single grain of truth in the article!
 
thing2of2|1330491233|3137038 said:
Yes, all science is wrong and biased and there couldn't possibly be a single grain of truth in the article!

Hehehe. :wacko:

I wish this was true. Sigh. But this article seems to be a bit too qualitative.
 
Interesting article. Did they define rich?

I think it is bs...
 
thbmok|1330519410|3137184 said:
Oh my. The LAT article really is terrible. Contrast it with Bloomberg's coverage of the same study: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-27/wealthier-people-more-likely-than-poorer-to-lie-or-cheat-researchers-find.html

IMO for science studies, media coverage generally reveals more about the reporters' shortcomings and biases rather than the actual findings and motivations of the studies' researchers.

Absolutely.
Media is for profit.
They are businesses that must sell ads.
They maximize readership by appealing to a certain demographic then let another "news" outlet appeal to another demographic.
I wouldn't doubt if there are examples of one owner owning outlets that appeal to opposite-leaning groups.
Money is king, not any sense of what is right.

NYTimes and FoxNews are not even trying to the same customers.

Media neutrality is a myth.
I'll betcha Bloomberg's demographic have a pretty high income so they have to slant coverage to not lose customers.

In a way this all sucks.
In another way it's good, like lawyers working hard to present only their side.
 
Hi,

Its a study, it doesn't mean everyone in the top 1% will cheat ,steal, and lie about things. It means that certain behavior was observed in this particular setting. Another study of the same people could show they were large givers, as Tristan would hope for. It only one small piece of a puzzle. Haven't any of you seen Congressional hearings where all the top execs lie about what they have done?

It does seem that a good portion of you want to discount any validity here. Again, we must all be viewed in the same way. We re all the same. Anything different will lead to generalizations that may become facist. Whats going on here?

I just finished reading Karls hit and run piece. Most posters call the incident RUDE. . RUDE? Its illegal and , I think, criminal to leave the scene of an accident.

There was a poster who wanted to have lazered diamonds included in AVC name. She claimed it was unfair to have less affluent people excluded from the name AVC. She wanted equality in purchasing lazered diamonds for the brand name.

The most astonishing study I have ever come across was the one where they told one party to give electric shocks to another party. I'm sure most of you know this study. Even when the shock recipient begged for the shock giver to stop, he or she did not.
Well, this study was repeated recently with the same results. Behavior can be effected by many things.

I have no doubt that if they did a study on poor people they would find lies, cheating and stealing going on there as well. but that would be more expected.

Just an interesting study.

Annette
 
I don't know anyone in the 1%, so I can't speak for their behavior, but obviously the article is bias. There are certain places I notice more attitude/rudeness and it is entirely based on location, not on the people. It's all about what part of town you're in and which store/place you're at. It's easy to pick certain sidewalks that you KNOW are going to attract less friendly people and set up your cameras/spies there to watch. Also, clearly you would pick certain times of day. I bet people are much less considerate at 8:30 am than at 11:00 am b/c at the earlier time, most are in a rush to get to work. Those at 11 am are just cruising about.

There are a couple times I've noticed inconsideration amoung people of "lower income," like litering in public parks, etc., and I see this as passive agressive toward society, so Berkely could do a study on this too?
 
kenny|1330529507|3137288 said:
Media neutrality is a myth.
I'll betcha Bloomberg's demographic have a pretty high income so they have to slant coverage to not lose customers.

Of course. But to me the biggest contrast between the two articles is that one is very poorly researched and focuses on the conclusions that can be drawn from the study, vs one that is better researched and spends more time on discussing the process of the study and the underlying dynamics.

In any case, I find it interesting that people can be so quick to pass judgement on the merits of the study, as well as the integrity of the researchers and the institution, without seeking out more information about the methodology and data first. :read:
 
Imdanny|1330477305|3136821 said:
Black Jade, are we talking about elitism and elites and whether those elites are "different"? Then what we mean is that the rich are (it is proposed) different in their brain chemistry vis a vis having empathy, being willing to cheat, being sociopaths, or what have you. The mob can kill the elite (French revolution) or the other way around (Hitler). I like to think, in fact I do believe that all people share humanity in common. For this and many other reasons, I find "studies" that say things ike this disingenuous to say the least. I think we both agree the study is BS? Let's agree to agree, if so.
Point taken. I agree to agree.
 
thbmok|1330541659|3137481 said:
kenny|1330529507|3137288 said:
Media neutrality is a myth.
I'll betcha Bloomberg's demographic have a pretty high income so they have to slant coverage to not lose customers.

Of course. But to me the biggest contrast between the two articles is that one is very poorly researched and focuses on the conclusions that can be drawn from the study, vs one that is better researched and spends more time on discussing the process of the study and the underlying dynamics.

In any case, I find it interesting that people can be so quick to pass judgement on the merits of the study, as well as the integrity of the researchers and the institution, without seeking out more information about the methodology and data first. :read:

Yeah, glad I wasn't quick to do that like those naughty people.

scolding.jpg
 
Black Jade|1330553561|3137677 said:
Imdanny|1330477305|3136821 said:
Black Jade, are we talking about elitism and elites and whether those elites are "different"? Then what we mean is that the rich are (it is proposed) different in their brain chemistry vis a vis having empathy, being willing to cheat, being sociopaths, or what have you. The mob can kill the elite (French revolution) or the other way around (Hitler). I like to think, in fact I do believe that all people share humanity in common. For this and many other reasons, I find "studies" that say things ike this disingenuous to say the least. I think we both agree the study is BS? Let's agree to agree, if so.
Point taken. I agree to agree.

Thank you.
 
Hmmm... I could have sworn I was posting a lighthearted observation the "chit chat" forum on a jewelry-oriented site, not on a forum for or about sociological research, or class divisions. I certainly did not intend to "pass judgement" on the quality or integrity of the researchers. Rest assured that I would never, ever be asked to write anything of consequence about sociological research.

thbmok|1330519410|3137184 said:
Oh my. The LAT article really is terrible. Contrast it with Bloomberg's coverage of the same study: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-27/wealthier-people-more-likely-than-poorer-to-lie-or-cheat-researchers-find.html

IMO for science studies, media coverage generally reveals more about the reporters' shortcomings and biases rather than the actual findings and motivations of the studies' researchers.

Great observation!
 
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