A Bird's Eye View of Unethical Behavior: Commentary on Trautmann et al. (2013).

Results from Trautmann and colleagues' large, representative survey of Dutch people suggest a more nuanced relationship between class and ethics than previous research has demonstrated (Trautmann, Van de Kuilen, & Zeckhauser, 2013, this issue). Following their analysis, we suggest that it is unlikely that either upper- or lower-class people are unequivocally more moral. Rather, several psychological and external forces are at play in ethical decision making, which likely vary in strength depending on the conceptualization of class and the sociocultural context. Furthermore, people from different social classes may have different ethical standards or different degrees of willingness to breach these standards (or both), a distinction that should be explored in future research.

Duke Scholars

Author Dan Ariely Fuqua School of Business