Research on Unethical Nature of People Based on Their Socioeconomic Status

Social Class, Power, and Selfishness is an empirical study to compare the unethical nature of people based on their socioeconomic status. Examples of unethical behavior in the study are cheating on your spouse, tax evasion, lying, falsifying expense reports, and so on. The study’s findings find anecdotal evidence of rich people acting unilaterally more unethical. However, when further defining unethical behavior, we find that a strong positive and negative correlation when you include the two levels of behavior benefiting yourself and others, respectively. A famous instance poor unethical behavior is a man named Heinz breaking into a store to steal a $2,000 drug for his dying wife. This case literally founded moral psychology (Kohlberg 1963).

The first experiment tests the hypothesis that high social class leads to more unethical behavior. This experiment is employed by the unethical behavior of cheating. 151 participants were put into a virtual game and assigned into one of two conditions that benefited self or others. Participants completed a die rolling task alone on a computer for 5 rolls. They were told that in order to be entered into a $50 lottery, the sum of their rolls needed to add up to 14 or greater. The game was programmed to only add up to 12, so any number over was an indication of cheating. In the other-beneficial group, participants were instructed to give the specific email address of where the lottery winnings would be sent to. High social class positively predicted cheating when self-beneficial, while negatively predicting low social class when other-beneficial.

The second experiment uses income as the separating factor to predict cheating, rather than social class. 81 participants were randomly assigned to self or other-beneficial scenarios, which were pretested beforehand to ensure that they were viewed the same morally. Participants were divided into 8 income categories and 4 educational categories. Income categories ranged from < €11,000 to > €71,000, while education was dichotomized into not finishing high school, high school graduate, college graduate, and postgraduate. Participants were asked the extent to which they would engage in unethical behaviors described in the pretest. The results replicate experiment 1; low income individuals were significantly more likely to cheat when it benefited others, while high income individuals were significantly more likely to cheat when it benefited themselves.

The third experiment tests power as a mechanism to explain the change in unethical behavior, as well as sense of status. 125 participants were randomly assigned to self or other-beneficial. Participants were exposed to the same conditions in experiment 2, however, they were gauged on sense of power and status by adapting past scales. Social class positively predicted self-benefitting unethical behavior, but negatively predicted other-benefitting unethical behavior. Power, but not status predicted unethical behavior on both self and other-beneficial levels. These findings do not establish causality.

Experiments 4, 5, and 6 seek to provide complimentary evidence for the underlying role of power. Experiments 4, 5, and 6 use the Experimental-Casual-Chain Approach. Experiment 4 manipulated social class and measured how it affects people’s sense of power. Experiments 5 and 6 manipulated power and examined its effects on unethical behavior that either benefited the self or others. The purpose of these experiments are to see if power is the driving factor in unethical behavior, not social class per se, since these two variables are closely correlated.

Experiment 4 manipulated social class and measured its impact on sense of power. 150 participants were randomly assigned to high social class, low social class, or baseline. Participants were awarded €6 for their 10 minute task. Participants were to complete a short writing task, comparing themselves to others at the bottom or top of the ladder. Baseline participants did not complete the writing task or were exposed to the ladder. Participants power was assessed their interpretation of how powerful they felt on a scale from 1 to 7. High social class participants felt significantly more powerful than the low social class participants. Likewise, low social class participants felt significantly less powerful than the baseline condition.

Experiment 5 directly manipulated power, and expected that low power would lead to unethical behavior benefitting others, while high power would predict selfish unethical behavior. 121 participants were assigned to one of 3 conditions, low power, high power, and baseline. Participants independently completed a writing recall task. The high power group wrote about a time about when they had high power, while the low power group wrote about a time they had low power. Baseline participants wrote about a time they went to the grocery store. Participants completed a second task, portrayed as a decision-making task. They were presented with a series of three scenarios in which they had the opportunity to lie about something, and were assured that lying would bear no negative effects if caught. The DV, the participants’ likelihood to lie, was measured on a scale from 1 to 9, which primed them for their input how powerful they felt after the writing task. They were also asked to evaluate how happy or sad the task made them feel, so emotion could be ruled out. Low power participants were more likely to lie for another person compared to baseline and high power participants. High power participants were less likely to lie for another person compared to baseline, but were more likely to lie for themselves compared to baseline and low power participants. Low power participants were least likely to lie for themselves. In other words, these results replicate previous findings where high power positively correlates with selfishness, while low power positively correlates with unethical behavior when it benefits others.

Experiment 6 sought to see changes in behaviors if participants were given an opportunity to actually lie, rather than scenario or hypothetical situations. 122 participants were randomly assigned to a 2 (power: high vs. low) X 2 (lie type: on behalf of self vs. another) between-subjects design and compensated €6 for their 10 minute task. Participants’ power was manipulated by asking them to imagine what it would be like to be a boss or an employee, representing high and low power, respectively. Participants were told to sit down at a computer screen, and that a number would flash on the screen – either 1 or 2 – representing their task (benefitting self) or the next participant’s task (benefitting other). They were told task 1 was a boring and repetitive task, while 2 was a fun and engaging task. The experiment left the room. The computers were set up to freeze with no visible number on the screen. When the experimenter came back, the participants were asked what number was shown on screen. The default number was 1, so an answer of 2 was a lie. Again, a manipulation check on a scale from 1 to 9 was given to ensure the priming task worked. High power participants were 63% likely to lie for themselves, while only 35% for others. In contrast, low power participants were 56% likely to lie on behalf of others, while only 32% likely to lie for themselves. Overall, this links to experiment 5 and show a causal relationship between power and actual unethical behavior.

The take home message from these experiments is that poor people are more likely to be unethical if it benefits others, while rich people are more likely to be unethical if it benefits themselves. Social class predicts selfishness, but not unethicalness per se. Social class is not a good predictor of driving unethicalness in general, but sense of power is. This is proven by 3 instances. Income, not educational background, predicted unethical behavior. The feeling of power, not status, predicted unethical behavior, and the specific manipulation of power yielded significant results. The question should not be “Are the rich more unethical than the poor?” but rather “When are the rich versus the poor unethical?”