Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior
Open accessAbstract
Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Piff et al. (2012) found that, relative to lower-class individuals, higher-class people were more likely to show unethical decision-making tendencies, to take valued goods from others, to lie in a negotiation, to cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize and to endorse unethical behaviour at work.
“Piff, Stancato, Côté, Mendoza‐Denton, and Keltner (2012), who found that, relative to lower‐class individuals, higher‐class people were more likely to show unethical decision‐making tendencies, to take valued goods from others, to lie in a negotiation, to cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize and to endorse unethical behaviour at work.”
From The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour (2018) · cites this paper as Piff, Stancato, Côté, Mendoza‐Denton, and Keltner (2012)
These unethical tendencies were partly accounted for by more favourable attitudes towards greed among higher-class people.
“There was also evidence that these unethical tendencies were partly accounted for by more favourable attitudes towards greed among higher‐class people.”
From The psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour (2018) · cites this paper as Piff et al. (2012)
Cites
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008) · Behavior Research Methods · doi:10.3758/brm.40.3.879 · Cited by 34,117 · see citing works
Social class, sense of control, and social explanation.
Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2009) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0016357 · Cited by 956 · see citing works
Self-citationSocial Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy
Kraus, M. W., Côté, S., & Keltner, D. (2010) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797610387613 · Cited by 663 · see citing works
Self-citationYou Can't Always Get What You Want: Educational Attainment, Agency, and Choice.
Snibbe, A. C., & Markus, H. R. (2005) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.88.4.703 · Cited by 614 · see citing works
Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resources and Rank in the Social Realm
Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2011) · Current Directions in Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0963721411414654 · Cited by 398 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior
Piff, P. K., Dietze, P., Feinberg, M., Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2015) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspi0000018 · Cited by 1,214 · see citing works
Self-citationThe psychology of social class: How socioeconomic status impacts thought, feelings, and behaviour
Manstead, A. S. R. (2018) · British Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1111/bjso.12251 · Cited by 831 · see citing works
Dubois, D., Rucker, D. D., & Galinsky, A. D. (2015) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspi0000008 · Cited by 404 · see citing works
Miller, J. D., Lynam, D. R., McCain, J. L., Few, L. R., Crego, C., Widiger, T. A., & Campbell, W. K. (2016) · Journal of Personality Disorders · doi:10.1521/pedi_2015_29_177 · Cited by 287 · see citing works
Subjective Status Shapes Political Preferences
Brown-Iannuzzi, J. L., Lundberg, K. B., Kay, A. C., & Payne, B. K. (2015) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797614553947 · Cited by 234 · see citing works
Cultural differences in moral judgment and behavior, across and within societies
Graham, J., Meindl, P., Beall, E., Johnson, K. M., & Zhang, L. (2016) · Current Opinion in Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.007 · Cited by 220 · see citing works
Subjective socioeconomic status causes aggression: A test of the theory of social deprivation.
Greitemeyer, T., & Sagioglou, C. (2016) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/pspi0000058 · Cited by 202 · see citing works
Liu, L., Chen, X., & Szolnoki, A. (2019) · Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Sciences · doi:10.1142/s0218202519500428 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Wang, T., Wang, X., Jiang, T., Wang, S., & Chen, Z. (2021) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph18063170 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
- Authors
- Piff, P. K., Stancato, D. M., Côté, S., Mendoza-Denton, R., & Keltner, D.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; and
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2012-02-27
- Volume
- 109
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 4086-4091
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3306667
- OpenAlex
- W2125457158
- Cited by
- 1,038
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 90 · 2024: 67 · 2023: 76 · 2022: 89 · 2021: 74 · 2020: 71 · 2019: 85 · 2018: 78 · 2017: 90 · 2016: 72 · 2015: 74 · 2014: 55 · 2013: 48 · 2012: 29
- FWCI
- 136.51
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2017-10-16)
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Ethics in Business and Education
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social Power and Status Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- social class, unethical behavior, upper class, greed, cheating, theft, unethical decision making, unethical workplace behavior, class inequality
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Automobile Driving, Ethics, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Social Behavior, Social Class, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
