Yes this is common knowledge. Most of us live within a given social hierarchy, and this effect is part of being a participant by default. We understand it intuitively.
"Rules for thee but not for me."
"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Senators build their wealth by millions while "working" for the public, and nobody bats an eye. We all know how it works.
It's why some celebrities are so loved when they don't fit the mold. People give up their seat on the subway every day, but when Keanu Reeves does it, he is venerated. Most people don't have any care for the people who run charities, but Dolly Parton is practically sainted for hers. All high-status people need to do is not be wicked and we are awed by it.
I think it's a matter of reach. Most ordinary people's good deeds have a small audience—the 'N' in a 1:N spread is limited. But the bigger the fame, the larger the audience becomes. From that perspective, when Keanu Reeves does something good, the number of people influenced by that act is much larger. I believe humans are creatures shaped by their environment—and they are influenced by it. So it's socially acknowledged that piling up these good actions is beneficial, and the greater the influence of such actions, the larger the impact they have. Of course, this is just my hypothesis.
What kind of non-sense are you spewing out of your big mouth through your unfiltered small brain?
> All high-status people need to do is not be wicked and we are awed by it
It's not easy to do so even if you are not of high status.
Your comment is a dead-away example that you are whining like a kid.
Me? I am unethical AF i don't give a s*t even more than you do so pointing it out to you because nobody more sane will give it to you straight in your face.
> "There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Do you know the source of that quote and the context? It was Frank Wilhoit explaining the core of the problem with conservatism. He wrote it when proposing anti-conservatism. To quote it as a general rule of life presumes that conservatism is the only way humans can organize a society.
Yes I do and perhaps instead of making that presumption you could simply understand conservatives to be those who perceive themselves to be part of that higher social class (or at least want to).
A lot of ethical behavior is actually invented by the higher classes to imbue the lower classes with self-policing. It's a social pattern across pretty much all human civilizations that have been.
I agree with the sentiment but I would like to push back against this a little bit. I think that there is a common set of human needs / principles that we can all agree are good, such as the golden rule, etc, etc.
But here's what I think happens: people with more power can more easily hide their transgressions. So in practice its easier to enforce rules against people with less power.
Second, a known and agreed upon good is really useful when seeking to manipulate people and generate "thought terminating cliches". Certain organizations / groups have gotten really good at taking known good things, and weave in their agenda and propaganda, linking something obvious with something that seems to make sense but actually doesn't.
History is rittled with how a call to ethical behaviour has been abused by the rich and powerful to keep the lower classes down. In Europe the Church used this to extol the virtues of poverty to the poor while selling pardons to the rich.
In China, the richness of Confucian philosophy was distilled down to obey orders from above / filial piety above all else, etc etc.
The fact that bad actors have taken something good and done bad things with them does not take away the value that can be found, it just needs to be on our own terms, and not someone else's.
Upper class: often flawlessly ethical, never moral.
Working class: sometimes moral, often indifferent to formal ethics that they feel were set in place without their consent.
The social language of appearing to avoid conflicts of interest and self-dealing is one in which upper-middle and upper class people are fluent. In terms of morality (avoiding harm, rather than avoiding violations of semiformal social principles) there is a negative correlation to SES, but it’s very slight because it turns out there are also scoundrels at the bottom.
Yeah. It's uncomfortable, but I have come to a similar conclusion. Part of the self-policing apparatus in my eyes is to also: a) keep the lower classes sicker and busier thus less able to make time and energy to change their environment b) condition them through education systems and social & cultural norms to be naive, gullible and approval-seeking and c) trigger fear and danger as much as possible to provide the solutions and thus be the needed entities in problems they create and have an edge in solving.
It isn't quite a conspiracy as much as it's a lower-level animalistic behavior. You see this sort of behavior occur in monkeys in tribes where alpha chimps will create conflict, drive war, and cut off competitors from resources to secure their edge and position.
"As vehicles are reliable indicators of a person's social rank and wealth"
The wealthiest Europeans I know drive the cheapest vehicles. Modesty is wealth in many parts of the world, but perhaps not in California (the authors are affiliated with UC Berkeley).
I would have guessed vehicle as predicting ethics more than bank balance. Dumb Toyota and minivan more trustworthy than a Porsche, Dodge Charger, or Cyber Truck.
They dont drive flash vehicles but they still do not drive junk. Thier car might be 20+ years old, but it is still a great car. Someone driving a well-maintained 90s BMW gathers more respect than anyone driving the latest model.
Clarkson had a line about estate owners driving "ancestral transport", invariably a land rover as old as the trees it lives amongst.
Why would an rando anecdote (which another sibling comment has proven does not reflect the broader reality) call into question an actual study? The latter may be garbage, or not, but it starts with a much better claim to credibility.
I would say it's not really a "rando anecdote", but the whole basis of the relationship of the first actual study in the paper.
To quote the paper:
"Our first two studies were naturalistic field studies, and examined whether upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals while driving. In study 1, we investigated whether upper-class drivers were more likely to cut off other vehicles at a busy four-way intersection with stop signs on all sides. As vehicles are reliable indicators of a person's social rank and wealth (15), we used observers’ codes of vehicle status (make, age, and appearance) to index drivers’ social class."
I worked with a client that sold stuff that was legal, but directed a lot of ad traffic to very questionable stuff and made a crazy amount of money from it.
Because of this there was always some risk of the government locking up bank accounts, so physical assets were purchased and spread around to avoid seizure of all finances which can prevent a person from fighting a legal battle.
> The wealthiest Europeans I know drive the cheapest vehicles
That may well be true of the people you know, but in general the relationship is exactly what one would expect: the higher people's income, the more expensive their car purchases.
However, there is another factor at play, which is that people who are more image conscious drive nicer cars at the same level of income/wealth, and in my experience, people who are more image conscious also tend to act more like jerks.
> in my experience, people who are more image conscious also tend to act more like jerks.
That has been my experience as well. Ive experienced people who are more image conscious to appear to be in an imaginary competition with others and they tend to act accordingly.
It's perhaps less true today, but there have always been similar dynamics in the US, just not nearly to the same degree or breadth as in, e.g., Denmark. The stereotypical northern WASP culture eschewed ostentatiousness, and British colonialism exported that dynamic not only to the US (particularly New England), but around the world--the middle and upper class culture in Commonwealth countries is very much recognizable to Brits and Americans.
I'm not even sure it's less true today in the US, but certainly it's less reflected in popular culture. Part of the reason is because that cultural dynamic to put on the pretense of being middle-class shifted downward to promoting (and to lesser extent adopting) working- and lower-class fashion in many ways (leftist virtue signalling being a related dynamic), and the lower classes have always been more ostentatious because that's how they imagine rich people behave.
Thanks for sharing data. I suspect this effect is heavily stratified across demographics.
After a point, how much someone chooses to spend on their car is about their values more than their wealth.
I once lived in a street with many parked cars worth almost as much the houses of their owners. They were clearly bought (well, financed) as status symbols. I now live in a more affluent, desirable area where the cars are much more modest despite higher wealth and social status of their owners (doctors, scientists etc).
I guess a handful of shoddy studies that are both terrible at isolating ethics and terrible at identifying social class are move persuasive than homicide, assault, and property crime statistics.
I can agree that poor people break the law more often. Not "are convicted of" but the acts.
I think the reasons are obvious and unrelated to the point of the study. Desperation, culture (broken window theory) which is critically related to average wealth, lack of opportunity, and legal veracity explains the statistics sufficiently.
Rich people have more capacity to do harm. For example that dude Luigi killed was a mass murderer, he killed 1000s, maybe 10,000s of people. So it’s hard for a poor criminal to compete
I think unethical behavior is necessary to have a certain amount of wealth, I’m not sure where the line is, but I do think it’s there.
Also, it seems that higher status/income people benefit a lot more from acting unethically than lower income people would, the more money at the table, the more beneficial it is to act unethically. I’m not saying it to excuse anyone’s behavior, just speculating out loud.
It seems that at least three groups tried to replicate the study and failed (i.e., found no or little actual effect)¹.
> In contrast, other research in economics and sociology has hypothesized and found a positive relationship between SES and prosocial and ethical behavior. We review the empirical evidence for these contradictory findings and conduct two direct, well-powered, and preregistered replications of the field studies by Piff and colleagues (2012) to test the relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior. Unlike the original findings, we find no evidence of a positive relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior in the two field replication studies.
The sad thing is how many people will believe this and repeat it. Kind of like the Stanford Prison or Milgram experiment, Or pretty much most anything that's come out of sociology
There was also this follow-up [1], pointing out that most of these 7 studies only had something like a 50–65% estimated chance of producing a significant result, yet all 7 did.
In other words, if a whole series of fairly noisy experiments all comes out squeaky clean, you have to wonder whether you're actually seeing the whole series.
> In the actual candy study, the participants were all students, status was manipulated in the lab by telling some students they were better than others, and "nearly twice" means 1 piece vs 2 pieces.
> oh and the researchers told participants they could take some candy. There was no stealing!
46 comments
[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 3.3 ms ] thread"Rules for thee but not for me."
"There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."
Senators build their wealth by millions while "working" for the public, and nobody bats an eye. We all know how it works.
It's why some celebrities are so loved when they don't fit the mold. People give up their seat on the subway every day, but when Keanu Reeves does it, he is venerated. Most people don't have any care for the people who run charities, but Dolly Parton is practically sainted for hers. All high-status people need to do is not be wicked and we are awed by it.
What kind of non-sense are you spewing out of your big mouth through your unfiltered small brain?
> All high-status people need to do is not be wicked and we are awed by it
It's not easy to do so even if you are not of high status.
Your comment is a dead-away example that you are whining like a kid.
Me? I am unethical AF i don't give a s*t even more than you do so pointing it out to you because nobody more sane will give it to you straight in your face.
Do you know the source of that quote and the context? It was Frank Wilhoit explaining the core of the problem with conservatism. He wrote it when proposing anti-conservatism. To quote it as a general rule of life presumes that conservatism is the only way humans can organize a society.
But here's what I think happens: people with more power can more easily hide their transgressions. So in practice its easier to enforce rules against people with less power.
Second, a known and agreed upon good is really useful when seeking to manipulate people and generate "thought terminating cliches". Certain organizations / groups have gotten really good at taking known good things, and weave in their agenda and propaganda, linking something obvious with something that seems to make sense but actually doesn't.
History is rittled with how a call to ethical behaviour has been abused by the rich and powerful to keep the lower classes down. In Europe the Church used this to extol the virtues of poverty to the poor while selling pardons to the rich.
In China, the richness of Confucian philosophy was distilled down to obey orders from above / filial piety above all else, etc etc.
The fact that bad actors have taken something good and done bad things with them does not take away the value that can be found, it just needs to be on our own terms, and not someone else's.
Working class: sometimes moral, often indifferent to formal ethics that they feel were set in place without their consent.
The social language of appearing to avoid conflicts of interest and self-dealing is one in which upper-middle and upper class people are fluent. In terms of morality (avoiding harm, rather than avoiding violations of semiformal social principles) there is a negative correlation to SES, but it’s very slight because it turns out there are also scoundrels at the bottom.
It isn't quite a conspiracy as much as it's a lower-level animalistic behavior. You see this sort of behavior occur in monkeys in tribes where alpha chimps will create conflict, drive war, and cut off competitors from resources to secure their edge and position.
The wealthiest Europeans I know drive the cheapest vehicles. Modesty is wealth in many parts of the world, but perhaps not in California (the authors are affiliated with UC Berkeley).
Clarkson had a line about estate owners driving "ancestral transport", invariably a land rover as old as the trees it lives amongst.
Ultimate statement about european land owners driving ancient vehicles: https://youtu.be/R8-9oIq1hxw?si=Ogg7C5MjFRoDdC9R
To quote the paper:
"Our first two studies were naturalistic field studies, and examined whether upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals while driving. In study 1, we investigated whether upper-class drivers were more likely to cut off other vehicles at a busy four-way intersection with stop signs on all sides. As vehicles are reliable indicators of a person's social rank and wealth (15), we used observers’ codes of vehicle status (make, age, and appearance) to index drivers’ social class."
Because of this there was always some risk of the government locking up bank accounts, so physical assets were purchased and spread around to avoid seizure of all finances which can prevent a person from fighting a legal battle.
That may well be true of the people you know, but in general the relationship is exactly what one would expect: the higher people's income, the more expensive their car purchases.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/articles/2...
Full paper: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/articles/2...
That has been my experience as well. Ive experienced people who are more image conscious to appear to be in an imaginary competition with others and they tend to act accordingly.
It's perhaps less true today, but there have always been similar dynamics in the US, just not nearly to the same degree or breadth as in, e.g., Denmark. The stereotypical northern WASP culture eschewed ostentatiousness, and British colonialism exported that dynamic not only to the US (particularly New England), but around the world--the middle and upper class culture in Commonwealth countries is very much recognizable to Brits and Americans.
I'm not even sure it's less true today in the US, but certainly it's less reflected in popular culture. Part of the reason is because that cultural dynamic to put on the pretense of being middle-class shifted downward to promoting (and to lesser extent adopting) working- and lower-class fashion in many ways (leftist virtue signalling being a related dynamic), and the lower classes have always been more ostentatious because that's how they imagine rich people behave.
After a point, how much someone chooses to spend on their car is about their values more than their wealth.
I once lived in a street with many parked cars worth almost as much the houses of their owners. They were clearly bought (well, financed) as status symbols. I now live in a more affluent, desirable area where the cars are much more modest despite higher wealth and social status of their owners (doctors, scientists etc).
Yeah, that's a fun meme, I'm sure it still gets a lot of likes on Instagram.
The data shows otherwise, however.
I think the reasons are obvious and unrelated to the point of the study. Desperation, culture (broken window theory) which is critically related to average wealth, lack of opportunity, and legal veracity explains the statistics sufficiently.
Also, it seems that higher status/income people benefit a lot more from acting unethically than lower income people would, the more money at the table, the more beneficial it is to act unethically. I’m not saying it to excuse anyone’s behavior, just speculating out loud.
> In contrast, other research in economics and sociology has hypothesized and found a positive relationship between SES and prosocial and ethical behavior. We review the empirical evidence for these contradictory findings and conduct two direct, well-powered, and preregistered replications of the field studies by Piff and colleagues (2012) to test the relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior. Unlike the original findings, we find no evidence of a positive relationship between SES and unethical/selfish behavior in the two field replication studies.
¹) https://pubpeer.com/publications/7363E2E1B57AC42EF166E0D0266... ²) https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-34988-001?doi=1
In other words, if a whole series of fairly noisy experiments all comes out squeaky clean, you have to wonder whether you're actually seeing the whole series.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3382534
> In the actual candy study, the participants were all students, status was manipulated in the lab by telling some students they were better than others, and "nearly twice" means 1 piece vs 2 pieces.
> oh and the researchers told participants they could take some candy. There was no stealing!