“The Influence of Affluence on Prosocial Behavior”, Daria Fomina, Amy Goltermann, Claire Elise Berner, Stephen Spivack, Theadora Bulajic, Jennifer Freda, Amelia Karim, Helena Julia Torres-Siclait, Jinge Ren, Alexis Egazarian, Jennifer Marina Perez, Stephanie Devli, Victoria Tong, Andrea Poinçot-Leopardi, Samantha Golden, Pranav Lowe, Jonah Zinn, Sagar Shah, Garrett Ienner, Alon Florentin, Lucy Cranmer, John Yaurimo, Morolayo Ayodele, Barbara Angie Clergé Boirond, Naud Jacob Zwier Veldhoen, Sahar Hafezi, Dylan Tossavainen, Huidi Yang, Nkiruka Olivia Marie Amu, Shelby McClelland, Pascal Wallisch2023-01-13 (ethics, sociology)⁠:

Popular wisdom has it that excessive material wealth leads to decreased prosocial behavior. This notion has empirical support in the literature, but there are open questions about how strong, specific, and general this effect is.

Here, we aimed to test the hypothesis that increased SES is associated with decreased prosocial behavior in a high-powered laboratory task.

We find that there are no statistically-significant differences in generosity as a function of social class. However, there are subtle—yet statistically-significant—patterns linking SES and dark triad personality traits.

We conclude that the relationship between SES and social behavior is considerably more nuanced than commonly believed.

[Keywords: affluenza, Dark Triad Dirty Dozen, generosity, Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, LSRP, narcissism, psychopathy, selfishness, socioeconomic status]