High-status individuals are held to higher ethical standards

• Verfasst von: Trautmann, Stefan T. [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Wang, Xianghong [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Wang, Yijie [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Xu, Yilong [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: High-status individuals are held to higher ethical standards
• Verf.angabe: Stefan T. Trautmann, Xianghong Wang, Yijie Wang & Yilong Xu
• E-Jahr: 2023
• Jahr: 13 September 2023
• Umfang: 12 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 20.09.2023
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Scientific reports
• Ort Quelle: [London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2011
• Jahr Quelle: 2023
• Band/Heft Quelle: 13(2023), Artikel-ID 15111, Seite 1-12
• ISSN Quelle: 2045-2322
• DOI: doi:10.1038/s41598-023-42204-z
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Forschungsdaten: Trautmann, Stefan T.: High‑status individuals are held to higher ethical standards [dataset]
• Sach-SW: Human behaviour
• Sach-SW: Social evolution
• K10plus-PPN: 1860053041

Abstract

Although there is evidence for the generosity of high-status individuals, there seems to be a strong perception that the elites are selfish and contribute little to others’ welfare, and even less so than poorer people. We argue that this perception may derive from a gap between normative and empirical expectations regarding the behavior of the elites. Using large-scale survey experiments, we show that high-status individuals are held to higher ethical standards in both the US and China, and that there is a strong income gradient in normatively expected generosity. We also present evidence for a gap between people’s normative expectations of how the rich should behave, and their empirical expectations of how they actually do: empirical expectations are generally lower than both normative expectations and actual giving.