Exploring the Psychology of Wealth, 'Pernicious' Effects of Economic Inequality
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They say drivers of high end cars are more likely to 'break the law'.
That's true but in this case I think it's just a civil issue. I phrase it differently. Since this is a civil issue (i.e. just a fine) I'd phrase it as drivers of luxury car are more likely to risk a fine of X$. At that point you have a totally banal observation.
What would be interesting is to separate out the price sensitivity from the behavior.
For example, maybe fines should be based on a percentage of income instead of an absolute amount. Say 1% of income (with an absolute minimum).
So if you run an intersection and you have the median income (40K) the fine is $400. If you run an intersection and you make 500K ... the fine is $5000. I bet you'd see the discrepancy narrow or disappear.
The only real exception is speed limits because in that case, respecting other people has more to do with keeping the same speed as everyone else than driving under an arbitrary limit.
It always seems to me that there are a lot more luxury car drivers in the group who merge late.
What I see, is that the best way to ensure even distribution of the merging cars is by merging late in a one for one fashion. Otherwise, you get more merging cars than those originally in the lane. This really only applies when traffic is heavy enough that space is limited.
One source of many: http://www.edmunds.com/driving-tips/car-merging-psychology-d...
However, the problem is that many people who merge late go so far that they have to practically stop to enter the lane they're merging into. Note that late merging is usually around 50 meters before the lane ends. If you go too far, then you're forced to slow down drastically and your merging will cause a problem for other drivers.
Over there the judge has some leeway for creative sentencing. I remember this case where one fellow ran the numbers and figured it would be cheaper for him to pay the occasional fine for parking in a no-parking zone than pay the parking meter. This didn't go down well with the judge, he argued that road signs are not made to look pretty, they serve to regulate traffic on the public roadways. That fellow had to hand in his license, he was banned from the road for five years, and a re-application after a ban involves a chat with a traffic psychologist.
I regularly parked in resident parking areas, getting tickets perhaps half the time, rather than the certainty of a higher price in a garage.
As an engineer, that seemed perfectly reasonable to me. (Resident parking violations are now much more expensive, so this loophole is largely fixed.)
But it was a bad thing to do, because you were taking parking spaces from the people they were for. Their fine structure was broken, but your moral calculus was the problem.
If you get a $10 fine from one person and a $1MM fine from another person, you have every incentive to make sure the latter person is the one you catch.
And just go straight to - it must be because of wealth inequality that they do these things!
Then they conveniently leave out the difference between minor traffic violations and more serious crimes like rape, murder, etc; and instead talk about how the rich take 2x more candy from children.
It's better now, but back in the 1980's, "massholes" were famous for driving in the breakdown lane when traffic got tight, often jamming up the breakdown lane as well as all the other lanes.
The signature "masshole", however, is the driver of a rear-wheel drive European car. I remember one time I was driving 495 at 2AM in the morning in heavy rain and heavy traffic with an average speed of about 85 mph. I didn't have enough traction to feel safe driving at that speed, but it didn't seem safe to drive 30 mph less than prevailing traffic either. Then all of a sudden a sports car comes up from behind me and passes me in the breakdown lane at what must have been at least 110 mph.
(At least he didn't get in trouble like the drunk who I saw driving the wrong way in Boston and then hit a police car head on)
> But we found consistently with people who were the rich players that they actually started to become, in their behavior, as if they were like rich people in real life. They were more likely to eat from a bowl of pretzels that we positioned off to the side. They ate with their mouths full, so they were a little ruder in their behavior to the other person.
So I believe the grand parent post still makes a very good point.
Whenever anyone offers "some" amount of anything, candy in this case, is it wrong to take all but one? They're rationally maximizing their holdings within the bounds specified. Therefore, if they follow this lifestyle for every decision that comes about, they'll be in some sense richer, or more optimal, than people who don't take all but one.
In other words, anytime the rules are ambiguous, why not test them?
I'm curious if anyone thinks this is neither right nor wrong?
You seem to be pretty much in line with most of the people commenting here, who largely assume there are methodological problems with the studies rather than accepting the findings that wealth causes moral decay.
Whenever anyone offers "some" amount of anything, candy in this case, is it wrong to take all but one? They're rationally maximizing their holdings within the bounds specified.
Yes, this could account for why that person is wealthier. But it is not moral behavior. Someone who says "the rules do not strictly prohibit me from taking as much candy from the children as I feel like, therefore I will do so" is a cancer on society, someone who takes as much as they can get away with, everyone else be damned.
In other words, anytime the rules are ambiguous, why not test them?
Because there are other people, and you should consider their needs and wants in addition to your own.
Is there anyone else that shares my thoughts?
For instance, if I were to rationally maximize my net worth, I would spend 100-hour workweeks at Goldman Sachs becoming King of the Quants. Why don't I do so? Don't I want to be wealthy?
Well, sure, I like being financially secure, but working 100-hour workweeks and being involved in finance capitalism would actually make me so damn miserable I'd want to kill myself. And that's even before we talk about the damage I'd be doing to my closest relationships and the world at large through this "optimal" plan to get rich through genius and hard work!
I've always considered myself and safe and considerate driver. I'm quite nice to people on the road and I usually stop for pedestrians even though we have no law enforcement in this regard here in India.
I recently bought myself the most expensive locally made bike available here, which also happens to be the biggest and most powerful on the road (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKuTFO4wXbw). This also happens to coincide with a change of jobs and a substantial 250% increase in pay, suddenly putting me well into the 0.1% in my city.
Do I stop / slow down for pedestrians less often? Yes.
Do I ignore homeless people and beggars more often? Yes, but I rationalize that by telling myself I don't want to encourage them.
Would I take the candy? No. But I might if they were AWS credits that were being used for entertaining children with games. I might not if they were going to the Khan Academy instead.
Do I feel entitled to all this? Maybe. I do try to be the best at what I do, love programming and spent a lot of time learning to negotiate for what I think my skills are worth. On the flip side I've started to assume that everyone has had the same opportunities and possibilities that I've had, and that if they wanted a better life they should have worked harder for it.
Just one thought.
If you look trough a lenses where everything is a business decision (whether ingrained or just habit acquired after doing it for 8 hours per day as a job) it will wrap your worldview that way.
The savvy business decision is to take as much as possible.
That reminded me of something I read a few month ago - maybe even here on HN - gamers don't have as scary nightmares. We are so used to killing weird stuff in weird worlds that when something nightmarish happens we take control in our dream and fight back. http://kotaku.com/5547398/video-gamers-have-power-over-their...
It is the same with the businessmen - after learning to ignore morality in the office - you cannot turn it on for the small stuff.
E.g. if you perceive candy as free then you take as much as you want, but if you are aware of its price you will limit yourself.
Or that people who use their brain more also like sweets more.
Or that the person conducting the experiment was aware about wealth of each test subject (i.e. it was not a double blind test) and affected the outcome accordingly.
Etc. etc.
I think extrapolating that the rich are literally taking candy from babies is a stretch too far to me.