maybe so, but calling this a "study" seems like a stretch.

The article points out two examples of the tests...the driving behavior test where "class" was determined by the make, year, and condition of the automobile, and

I quote: "laboratory experiments on people who had been asked to classify themselves as to their class status, to test lying and cheating."

So the basis for determining "class status" was the car they drive in one case, and self classification in another.

And with this rigorous application of the scientific method we conclude that upper class people are more likely to lie, cheat and steal?

Lesse, the study came from bezerkely, right?
They wouldn't be biased by their extreme view of the world, .............. Naw, couldn't be.

They're FOS and are pandering to the occupy-tards.

"A" Mercedes or "A" Porsche, I'm sure that narrows down the economic status.

go back to PARF, spammy

Frankly, PARF is where this thread should go...seems to me Randy's attempts at class hatred & envy are right out of the Democrat party talking points handbook.

Again, Sammy, your perceptive and insightful observations are reflected by an outburst of infantile ramblings.

If the study is biased, it wouldn't be relevant much less accurate and therefore not qualified for inclusion in a prof. journal. The study didn't claim to reflect world-wide attitudes. The conclusion of the study may be surprisingly less political than many here might assume.

As opposed to the MB drivers actually having wealth, a portion of the study featured peoples own imagined and/or perceived of class that affected their ethical attitudes. But don't let me interpret for you. Here are some articles on the study.

Wealthy More Likely to Lie, Cheat: Researchers - Bloomberg

Wealthy, motivated by greed, are more likely to cheat, study finds - latimes.com

Rich people are more likely to behave unethically, study finds | The Daily Californian

And..... if you consider yourself not wealthy but admittedly greedy, unethical and dishonest, your sub-group probably wasn't studied. Contact the researchers for Part II of their study.

Sherwood

Conflating class and wealth is a mistake. I just spent the weekend with a couple of hundred very wealthy farmers. No one would consider them "upper-class" but they sure are rich.

For some reason this PSA comes to mind....

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3iQLnpupaUM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Let's not get our panties in a wad about this study. It's nothing more than feed for the water-cooler chatter.

Problem 1 - Attempt to classify a person by the car they drive. Issues or holes:

- Many of the "high-end" cars are leased. While leasing can be a valuable tool, let's face it, car leasing came about to permit the car company's to get people into a car they could not normally afford.

- Many of the "high-end" cars were bought used, hence at a price far lower than current model year new. Why because most people cannot afford the new one. Many also tend to keep them all nice and shiny on the outside and unless you are a car afficionado, that high-end used car gets lumped in with the high-end new cars from a perception standpoint.


Problem 2 - Asking a person to classify where they fit. Issues or holes:

- I have found that most people, when queried on a matter such as this and whereby it is unlikely that the interviewer/questioner cannot possibly be expected to verify, most people will exaggerate their importance or status or wealth. While it was many, many moons ago, I also seem to recall in political science 101 and psychology 101, a true study performed which validated this tendency to exaggerate when there is an unlikelihood of being cross-checked.

So, there is no "old boys network"? And country clubs are just gathering places for golfing buffs? And the wealthy get all their insider stock information from the WSJ, right Martha?


I keep thinking about something my corporations professor once said "Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime." And he was hardly a liberal.

Both problems you describe might have been significant, but other situational experiments in the study tended to reinforce their thesis.

If a person perceives themselves in a higher social class, their attitudes may mirror those with persons having verifiable wealth. The other test situations placed random test subjects in role-playing scenarios (candy experiment) with similar results. This study doesn't necessarily disparage all who are wealthy; it just shows potential sociological tendencies, just like persons who have healthy appetites aren't necessarily obese. Unbunch shorts and move on.

Sherwood

Sherwood, are you referring to the experiments from the OP's article or are you referring to other experiments from other similarly conducted studies?

Validation of a persons class did not appear to be addressed in any of the experiments of the OP's referring article. Normally I would not have given it another thought and would have presumed that they did proper validation of such, except for the the fact of their choice regarding the intersection experiment which lead me to wonder if they ensured validation of class at all.

Nevertheless, a thesis of this type is interesting and certainly will catch the eye of The Economist which I have found does a fairly good job at looking into such studies.

On a PARF-related note:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qgVUxmjf0G8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

S

Yes. Webb's link is the same one I referred to. As I mentioned, it appears a test subject's wealth wasn't confirmed, just alluded to in the pedestrian crossing test. Using verifiable wealthy test subjects would have been more valid in that respect. However, a person's self-assessment of social class in the other experiments is just as valid a variable. After all, it was a study on ethical behavior. The variables were persons who perceive themselves in different social strata. Let's see how The Economist interprets the study.

S

More hate the rich garbage from Berkeley? Why am I not surprised? In most colleges and research facilities you follow the scientific method- you know- a hypothesis then an experiment then a conclusion. At Berkeley the hypothesis is the conclusion- then they rig an experiment that fits.

Funny how we used to aspire to be rich- now we just hate them. No wonder the country's broke and getting broker.

Kinda sounds like Global Warming ...

sounds like all you two are both scientists at UCB, eh?