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From the article, there's "an apparent link between wealth and, well, unseemly behavior", but is that because in some cases, unseemly behavior leads to increase

by tagawa 13y ago

From the article, there's "an apparent link between wealth and, well, unseemly behavior", but is that because in some cases, unseemly behavior leads to increased wealth? It's the same old correlation/causation question that doesn't seem to have been looked into.

deleted 13y ago
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ufo 13y ago
From what I read it seems that they controlled for that. Even in the experimental game setting, where both players are just as rich in real life, the player thats richer inside the game starts exibiting those unseemly behaviours. > 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.
- hristov 13y ago
  Yeah but in this case, they did not say that they showed that the "fake rich" player engaged in cheating or breaking rules. All they could show is that the "fake rich" player attributed their success to their own skill when it was obvious that the rules were significantly tilted in their favor. So I believe the grand parent post still makes a very good point.
- notahacker 13y ago
  The monopoly experiment as described in the article doesn't sound like especially convincing evidence for the hypothesis that wealth makes people inconsiderate though: the researchers - with openly stated personal biases - observed that people playing a game rigged in their favour snacked more, and then usually didn't dispute their entitlement to win the game after winning. I don't believe that actually illustrates anything about wealth at all. You'd have to go some way to convince me that Monopoly is a good proxy for wealth, never mind explaining away competing explanations for the exhibited behaviour not associated with courtesy or wealth (winners are generally not disposed towards disavowing their entitlement to win, and those with a simpler challenge have every reason to enjoy themselves more or concentrate less). If his findings suggested that people that started off "rich" were more likely to feel they deserved to win than winners of a fair game it would have been a more interesting finding...
dllthomas 13y ago
Did you read the article? They were able to reproduce the effects by making people feel richer, by giving them a leg up in Monopoly, after determining which player would get said leg up by a coin toss. Unless you think participant wealth was substantially impacting that coin toss, they did rule out correlation (and causation in the other direction) being the sole explanation.
eweise 13y ago
Why add a comment when you didn't read the article?

by tagawa 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ufo 13y ago

From what I read it seems that they controlled for that. Even in the experimental game setting, where both players are just as rich in real life, the player thats richer inside the game starts exibiting those unseemly behaviours. > 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.

hristov 13y ago
Yeah but in this case, they did not say that they showed that the "fake rich" player engaged in cheating or breaking rules. All they could show is that the "fake rich" player attributed their success to their own skill when it was obvious that the rules were significantly tilted in their favor. So I believe the grand parent post still makes a very good point.
notahacker 13y ago
The monopoly experiment as described in the article doesn't sound like especially convincing evidence for the hypothesis that wealth makes people inconsiderate though: the researchers - with openly stated personal biases - observed that people playing a game rigged in their favour snacked more, and then usually didn't dispute their entitlement to win the game after winning. I don't believe that actually illustrates anything about wealth at all. You'd have to go some way to convince me that Monopoly is a good proxy for wealth, never mind explaining away competing explanations for the exhibited behaviour not associated with courtesy or wealth (winners are generally not disposed towards disavowing their entitlement to win, and those with a simpler challenge have every reason to enjoy themselves more or concentrate less). If his findings suggested that people that started off "rich" were more likely to feel they deserved to win than winners of a fair game it would have been a more interesting finding...

dllthomas 13y ago

Did you read the article? They were able to reproduce the effects by making people feel richer, by giving them a leg up in Monopoly, after determining which player would get said leg up by a coin toss. Unless you think participant wealth was substantially impacting that coin toss, they did rule out correlation (and causation in the other direction) being the sole explanation.

eweise 13y ago

Why add a comment when you didn't read the article?