Does having a lot of money make you mean? | The Happiness Professor

Prominent social psychologists and major media outlets have put forward the notion that people of high socioeconomic status (SES) are more selfish and behave more unethically than people of low SES. But is this really the case?
We took this to the test by redoing one of the most influentials studies on this topic. We test whether drivers of expensive cars are more likely to violate traffic laws than drivers of cheaper cars.
Unlike the original findings of the American researchers, we find no evidence of a positive relation between SES and unethical behaviour. So richer and poorer individuals are equally likely to behave badly.
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Reference to the main article:
psycnet.apa.or...
Reference to the original study we failed to replicate:
www.pnas.org/d...
Evidence that Germans with a higher income donate and volunteer more:
journals.plos....
In the Netherlands, individuals with higher income give a lower fraction of their income to charity:
renebekkers.fi...
Evidence that Dutch millionaires give more than the general population in dictator games:
www.pnas.org/d...
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Paul Smeets is Professor of Philanthropy and Sustainable Finance at the University of Amsterdam. His goal is to maximise the impact of every euro donated to charity and every euro invested with impact. Therefore, he evaluates the impact of charitable projects; studies what motivates people to give; and explores new developments and trends in the world of philanthropy and sustainable finance.
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www.paulsmeets.eu
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Video created by Jascha Neutelings, CONCREET.media | concreet.media/

[@durairaja1200]

Nice study.

[@reinderdorman2169]

The title says "does having a lot of money [...]", but the socio-econonic status is infered from the car's worth/age, and in other studies from a composit of income, education and occupational prestige, correct? From the brief look at the papers, it's not so easy to disentangle income and education for instance, as I can imagine that these two dimensions might have widely different effects on someones pro-social behavior. Even so, within education (i.e. MD versus business school) could already spell out someones pro-social attitude. Also, isn't the highest cuttoff for cars and or income a bit low? in the main study the highest category was cars above 44k. That doesn't really constitute "rich" I think, seeing how there are cars going up to 200k (such as the Ferrari's as mentioned in this video). Similarly, the "higher income donate more" tops off at income above 60k, while that's arguably not really "rich". I mean, I wouldn't consider a postdoc rich, nor a full prof actually. There are quite some ranges above this, especially when you reach the levels where one could financially attain things some other people really will never be able to reach. Otherwise intersting stuff. Would love to hear your opinion on when "richness" CAN become problematic, what the upper bounds are. Especially interesting when you reach exceptional levels of wealth and power (power for instance in the sense of having a particularly position in a company with many means at your disposal).