Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior (2012) | Hacker News Reader

Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior (2012)

pnas.org

104 pointscolinprince41 comments

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Oh boy. Very trustworthy "science" right here.

There are so many problems with this...

Study 5+7: online survey via Mechanical Turk (n=90/108) really?

Study 6: online survey via Craigslist ad, voucher reward

Study 3+4: survey with undergrad students (n=120/150)

Studies 1+2: rating behaviour of about 200 drivers at an intersection

* Not even a definition for social class or ethical behaviour.

* "Social class" was assigned via self-ranking or car value, both very problematic.

* Almost no numbers or info on methodology.

* Online surveys with self ranking for social class, and via paid Mechanical Turk participants or Craigslist ad with vouchers are sure to give a very accurate and representative sample with "higher class" individuals...

* In 1+2, very low n considering how easy data collection would be. Driver age and gender were ostensibly controlled for, but I'm doubtful this was done properly.

The hypothesis might very well be true, but this "research" is about as valuable as a tabloid opinion piece.

I don't even bother reading papers that are politically charged these days if any at all.

There is no end to this kind of papers if you check and I am really tired of seeing the media spin up of these, too. Is exaggerating a claim to the point it makes it false or not verifying the papers before promoting "fake information"?

Here's why you need to stop doing x. It's bad for you, research confirms.

Why research thinks the type of food you eat has influenced your election candidate

Why we are going to be extinct in the next 50 years and scientists can't figure it out.

This new material can change the way how processing works in a matter of few years, research shows (date - 2005)

Most AI researchers claim this and that (survey cut down to a single event with undergraduates and journalists mixed in.)

I would be curious if someone has any papers confirming that the number of shit papers has increased over time or has remained the same whilst being scrutinized more heavily.

I've made it a point to look up any study mentioned in the media. In almost all cases, dramatic conclusions are drawn from sample sizes in the low xx digits.

There is absolutely no way such tiny sample sizes can be conclusive

Yeah, I'm sure it'll get plenty of citations though and in modern science that's the figure of merit.

The irony of it is that when you consider the reality of increasing wealth inequality (and the power imbalances that this creates), the claims made by the article are consistent with the ethical degradation of modern science and business in general.

Another researcher has discovered soon after problems with that publications p-value.

  Evidence that publication bias contaminated studies relating social class and unethical behavior

https://www.pnas.org/content/109/25/E1587

Here's a later study from different authors that replicates but also refines these findings: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fpspi0000008

> Replicating past work, social class positively predicted unethical behavior; however, this relationship was only observed when that behavior was self-beneficial. When unethical behavior was performed to benefit others, social class negatively predicted unethical behavior; lower class individuals were more likely than upper class individuals to engage in unethical behavior. Overall, social class predicts people’s tendency to behave selfishly, rather than predicting unethical behavior per se.

Study 1 + 2

> 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.

Study 3

> Participants also reported their social class using the MacArthur scale of subjective SES [1].

Study 4

> Participants experienced either a low or high relative social-class rank by comparing themselves to people with the most (least) money, most (least) education, and most (least) respected jobs. Participants also rated their position in the socioeconomic hierarchy relative to people at the very top or bottom. This induction primes subjective perceptions of relatively high or low social-class rank.

Study 5

> Participants also reported their social class using the MacArthur scale

Study 6

> Participants also completed the measures of social class and attitudes toward greed that we used in study 5.

Study 7

> Participants also reported their social class using the previously described MacArthur measure.

___

1. https://macses.ucsf.edu/research/psychosocial/subjective.php

What does 'upper class' mean to the authors?

To me, 'upper class' means something like an international billionaire, or a member of a European aristocracy, someone with considerable social influence, something like that.

Here it seems to mean someone driving a new car?!

My biggest complaint with that study is that it doesn't seem to control at all for the "asshole who buys a shiny car they can't afford" effect. I bet there's a correlation between people who buy expensive cars purely to give the perception of wealth who are also much more likely to cut people off.

> To me, 'upper class' means something like an international billionaire, or a member of a European aristocracy, someone with considerable social influence, something like that.

That's a weird concept of "upper class". There are very few billionaires, they don't really make up a "class". They are part of the upper class, but pretty much anybody with a personal wealth that is far above the mean would qualify for upper class in my book.

If you stopped working now and, living an average lifestyle, wouldn't have to ever work again, surely you're not middle class, but you also don't have to be a billionaire for that to be possible.

> If you stopped working now and, living an average lifestyle, wouldn't have to ever work again, surely you're not middle class

I think you'd be middle class.

Upper class is people with international influence, staff, significant land, titles, honours, membership of elite social organisations. It's not just people with a bit of money.

But that would make them quite literally the 1% (or 0.1%), i.e. you'd have large middle and lower classes and barely visible upper class.

I wouldn't put "net wealth of 5m" into a group with "net wealth of 50k", I think the 5m person is more similar to somebody with 500m insofar that he doesn't do manual labor, has a significant income from capital gains, and has ensured that even his kids won't ever have to actually work.

Something like 50% lower, 40% middle, 10% upper class, with a tiny part of that upper class making up the super rich sounds more reasonable to me. Maybe the super rich are their own class?

> you'd have large middle and lower classes and barely visible upper class

Yes, isn't that the world we live in?

That depends on the country, I suppose. If you're in Hong Kong with an inequality rating that even makes the US seem collectivist in comparison, totally. In the US? Maybe, I don't know. In Europe? I don't think so. It's moving in that direction, but it's still quite far away. But again, that depends on who is or is not upper class. I have a few friends who got "rich" (rich from my perspective, not from Bill Gates') and I consider them very much "upper class" in financial terms, even though none of them can sway elections by making a phone call or have the Mayor step down. They aren't Louis XIV, but they don't have to ever consider "can I afford doing that instead of working" ever again.

I think your own perspective may skew things a bit. If you're already in the top 20% (which most HN posters probably are due to their profession and education) then you may well know a lot more 1%ers than you realise. Probably most of the "rich" people you know are well into the 1%.

Possibly, my point was just that I consider the extreme form of wealth (aka billionaires or close to it) not the distinguishing feature of the upper class, the lower limits of that class are much lower (relatively, it's obviously still not easy to achieve).

I wouldn't consider myself middle class with capital gains north of the median income, but I don't have a clear cut criteria to apply here.

For the study with cars at an intersection, they simply used the model and make of the cars, so an old toyota vs. a new mercedes for example would be on opposite ends of the spectrum.

The problem with that is, plenty of wealthy people drive mundane or even frugal cars. I'm guessing that the need to drive a flashy car can correlate with being an asshole much more strongly than wealth.

The Queen of the United Kingdom's state Bentleys were made back in 2002 so she's presumably working class in the eyes of this study.

The only time I have seen the Queen she was in a 1950's or earlier Rolls Royce.

I used to work near St Pauls so you occasionally had official events.

Also Prince Charles famously has a 40 year old Barbour he wears

In one study upper class is defined as being in close physical proximity to a large number of $1 bills.

> responded to an advertisement on Craigslist, an online community forum, and received an invitation to complete an on-line study for a chance to win a $50 gift certificate

I don't think upper class people regularly respond to competitions for $50 gift certificates on Craigslist, either.

Bored stay at home partner might?

The issue is the degree of selection bias, not whether outliers exist.

This tiny-sample study [Piff 2012] hasn't held up strongly in attempts to confirm/replicate:

https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1053175632568442880

Why there is reference to PhpMyAdmin in the url ? It sounds like an old good vulnerability

Since higher position in a social structure always means better treatment by the judicial system, it should be expected that the reduced deterrent would result in more bad behavior.

Especially in combination with the stronger sense of entitlement that often follow high status.

When someone poor does something bad, they're judged harshly for it, they're already poor, how dare they! But when someone rich does something bad, they're excused, they're rich after all, they've earned that right.

Which is probably why it's only LBA (Large Black Audis) drivers and handicapped people who park on the handicap parking spaces.

Your point is well-taken, but always is a stretch.

True, one should always avoid the word "always". But given that the world just saw a Senate trial of a nations highest ranking member occur with no witness and no evidence allowed, the claim remains pretty strong.

I assume the free will ideology creates unethical behaviour by the outcome of creating justification towards social stratification. Then we get falsehood excuses for materialism and judgement & punishment of the less privileged. The higher social class ends up being delusional to reality.

All behavior is selfish. Each level is supported by the lower level. Upper class has a smaller support of semi-elites below them they must appease. Many things are zero-sum so most actions at this level take from the majority for the minority. Thus unethical behavior baked into hierarchy.

>All behavior is selfish.

That's highly debatable. A child would be incapable of survival in its first few years of life if it weren't for the love of its mother. I guess your response to that will be that it's selfish genes to which I don't really have a counter response.

Extremely disappointing that a scientific paper makes proclamations about ethics without even defining what "unethical" means. This is really missing the forest for the trees, especially considering that numerous philosophers have argued that traditional Christian morality (which led to current conceptions of democratic morality) is itself a morality of the lower classes. In that case, it's almost inevitable that higher social classes would be unethical according to the lower classes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master–slave_morality

I should add that I don't necessarily buy this argument, but I do think that scientists conducting experiments involving morality should be aware of the field's history of thought.

The abstract does hint at it:

> upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals ... take valued goods from others ... cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize ... unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.

> numerous philosophers have argued

Friedrich Nietzsche is not "numerous philosophers".

How does one even define "Traditional Christian Morality?". It's in no way a monolithic religion. Even within the same denomination you can go from Jesus to Saint Olga for your definition of "moral".

The more I read Nietzsche the more glad I am that I live in a society that does not greatly value philosophy.

> The more I read Nietzsche the more glad I am that I live in a society that does not greatly value philosophy.

Your society still values some philosophies, even if you happen to be ignorant about where they come from. It just makes it harder for you to understand and question them.

The people who have chosen your philosophy for you probably don't want you to recognize it as a philosophy. They want you to see it as "common sense", "the real world", "the natural order of things", "my guts" or something like that.

Nietzsche was one of the philosophers that believed you could invent your own system of morals, and was opposed to traditional moral frameworks, especially religious frameworks, and especially especially Christian moral frameworks. A concept that today has such a remarkably poor track record, that there’s really no reason for it to be taken seriously anymore. But the way he categorized things is perfectly reasonable given the context of his writing. No religion truly describes a single monolithic belief system or morality. Every religion is made entirely of individuals who each have their own particular set of beliefs and morality. But we invent categories to group things that are similar together, and “traditional Christian morality” makes perfect sense to discuss as an alternative to “Nietzschean morality”.

PNAS resorting to buzzfeedy, click bait faux research.

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