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Essay / Research on the unethical nature of people based on their socio-economic status
Social class, power and selfishness is an empirical study aimed at comparing the unethical nature of people based on their socio-economic status. Examples of unethical behavior in the study are cheating on your spouse, tax evasion, lying, falsifying expense reports, etc. The study's findings reveal anecdotal evidence that wealthy people act unilaterally in more unethical ways. However, by further defining unethical behavior, we see a strong positive and negative correlation when you include both levels of behavior that benefit yourself and others, respectively. A famous example of unethical behavior is that of a man named Heinz who broke into a store to steal medicine worth $2,000 for his dying wife. This affair literally founded moral psychology (Kohlberg 1963). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayThe first experiment tests the hypothesis that high social class leads to more unethical behavior. This experience is used for the unethical behavior of cheating. 151 participants were placed in a virtual game and assigned to one of two conditions that benefited themselves or others. Participants performed a die rolling task alone on a computer for 5 rolls. They were told that to enter a $50 lottery, the sum of their rolls had to add up to 14 or more. The game was programmed to only total 12, so any number higher was an indication of cheating. In the other recipients group, participants were asked to provide the specific email address to which the lottery winnings would be sent. High social class positively predicts cheating when it is beneficial to oneself, while lower social class negatively predicts it when it is beneficial to others. The second experiment uses income as the separating factor to predict cheating, rather than social class. 81 participants were randomly assigned to scenarios beneficial to themselves or others, which were pre-tested beforehand to ensure they were perceived the same morally. Participants were divided into 8 income categories and 4 education level categories. Income categories ranged from <€11,000 to >€71,000, while education was divided into two categories: not completing secondary education, secondary school graduate, university graduate and postgraduate graduate. Participants were asked to what extent they would engage in the unethical behaviors described in the pretest. The results replicate Experiment 1; low-income individuals were significantly more likely to cheat when it benefited others, while high-income individuals were significantly more likely to cheat when it benefited themselves. The third experiment tests power as a mechanism to explain change in unethical behavior, as well as sense of belonging. Status. 125 participants were randomly assigned to themselves and other beneficial people. Participants were exposed to the same conditions in Experiment 2, however, they were assessed on their sense of power and status by adapting past scales. Social class positively predicts unethical behavior that benefits the self, but predictsnegatively unethical behavior that benefits others. Power, but not status, predicted unethical behavior, both in self and others. These results do not establish causality. Experiments 4, 5, and 6 seek to provide additional evidence for the underlying role of power. Experiments 4, 5, and 6 use the experimental-casual-chain approach. Experiment 4 manipulated social class and measured how it affects people's sense of power. Experiments 5 and 6 manipulated power and examined its effects on unethical behaviors that benefited either oneself or others. The goal of these experiments is to see if power is the determining factor in unethical behavior, and not social class per se, since these two variables are closely correlated. Experiment 4 manipulated social class and measured its impact on feelings of power. 150 participants were randomly assigned to high social class, low social class, or basic social class. Participants received €6 for their 10-minute task. Participants were asked to complete a short writing task, comparing themselves to others at the bottom or top of the scale. Baseline participants did not complete the writing task or were exposed to the scale. Participants' power was rated based on their interpretation of their feelings of power on a scale of 1 to 7. Participants with high social class felt significantly more powerful than participants with lower social class. Similarly, lower social class participants felt significantly less powerful than the baseline condition. Experiment 5 directly manipulated power and expected that low power would lead to unethical behavior benefiting others, while high power would predict selfish and unethical behavior. 121 participants were assigned to one of 3 conditions: low power, high power, and baseline. Participants independently completed a writing recall task. The high power group wrote about a time when they had high power, while the low power group wrote about a time when they had low power. The baseline participants wrote about a time they went to the grocery store. Participants completed a second task, presented as a decision-making task. They were presented with a series of three scenarios in which they had the option to lie about something, and they were assured that lying would have no negative effects if they were found out. DV, participants' likelihood of lying, was measured on a scale of 1 to 9, which primed them to rate how powerful they felt after the writing task. They were also asked to rate how happy or sad the task made them, to rule out any emotion. Low-power participants were more likely to lie for another person than baseline and high-power participants. High-power participants were less likely to lie for another person than baseline participants, but were more likely to lie for themselves than baseline and low-power participants. Low-power participants were the least likely to lie for themselves. In other words, these results replicate previous findings that high power is positively correlated with selfishness, while low power is positively correlated with unethical behavior when it benefits others. Experiment 6 sought to observe changes in behavior if participants were given the opportunity to?”