Dacher Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center. Paul Piff is a research scientist and Ph.D. candidate in psychology at U.C. Berkeley.
In 1986, Ivan Boesky spoke here at our university and proclaimed “greed is healthy.” Lore has it that Boesky and this speech inspired the Gordon Gekko character in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street,” and the “Greed is … good” speech. Now, some 25 years later, seven studies we conducted, some on this same campus, have proved the opposite, that greed, far from being good, undermines moral behavior.
Wealthier subjects even took more candy from a jar that was ostensibly for children.In this research we looked at the ethical conduct among society’s haves and have-nots. In one study we found that wealthier subjects cheated more. After five apparently random rolls of a computer die for a chance to win some cash, wealthier participants were more likely to report scores higher than 12 — even though the game was rigged so that scores higher than 12 were impossible. When we positioned assistants at four-way traffic stops and pedestrian zones, wealthy drivers in high-priced cars were more likely to cut off other drivers or ignore pedestrians. In still other studies, the wealthy were more likely to lie in negotiations and endorse unethical behavior at work, like deceiving clients for profit. Wealthier subjects even took more candy from a jar that was ostensibly for children.