CONFIRMING WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW
WHAT DO MARK ZUCKERBERG, STEVE JOBS AND BILL GATES HAVE IN COMMON? The answer isn’t just billions: all three have been accused of practicing questionable ethics. Now comes new research that confirms that wealth and poor ethics are related. In a study that divided participants by wealth, occupational prestige and education, researchers at UC-Berkeley research discovered the wealthier subjects were “more likely to cheat, lie and break the law than those who were poorer,” according to ABC News. Most striking: these findings were consistent in seven separate studies and greed was the motive. In two separate tests, researchers found that drivers of high-end autos were more likely to cut off other drivers and pedestrians than those who drove older cars. In a second experiment, higher income had a bearing on whether test subjects would cheat to win $50 in an online game. In a third study, richer test subjects were quicker to confess they’d behave unethically and lie in certain situations. In yet other studies, wealthier subjects were more likely to lie, steal and “endorse unethical” behavior at work. Paul Piff, a Berkeley doctoral student and lead author of the study, told ABC “that it is much more prevalent for people in the higher ranks of society to see greed and self-interest … as good pursuits. This resonates with a lot of current events these days.” Piff points out the obvious impact such greed has on society. “Inequality is very much on Americans’ minds, ” he said, “and the potential effects of severe inequality on individual levels of behavior are major.” The bottom line: “What it comes down to, really, is that money creates more of a self-focus, which may account for larger feelings of entitlement,” Piff tells ABC. Still unanswered is if the unethical behavior leads or follows wealth-building. At least in the examples of Gates, Jobs and Zuckerberg, the question seems clear: all three tech titans were accused of unethical behavior early in their careers. Though the world’s largest philanthropist now, Gates, 56, has long faced charges that he “used both illegal and unethical techniques” to grow Microsoft. The late Steve Jobs is renown for being deceitful and even cheated his original partner out of money in one of his earliest business deals. And Zuckerberg’s duplicity is so well known that it has been turned into a motion picture blockbuster, The Social Network. I’d advise all poor people to get busy lying and cheating, except, have you noticed that it’s only poor liars and cheats that go to jail?
The Rich Really Are Lying, Cheating Sacks
“Upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed,” according to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
