By Emily Chung, CBC News
A new study gives new meaning to the word “classy” — it turns out wealthier, better educated, more successful people have a greater tendency to lie, cheat and cut off pedestrians while driving, compared with their poorer neighbours.
Seven experiments using different measures of class in different situations consistently showed that the upper classes were more likely to engage in unethical behaviour than those from lower classes, reported a summary of the results to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Paul Piff and his colleagues at the Institute of Personality and Social Research have deducted that rich people will cheat, steal and lie.

Stéphane Côté,a psychologist at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management who co-authored the study, said he was surprised by the consistency of the results across all the experiments and thinks it’s something that people who are better off should be aware of.
“I think it’s important for those people who have the resources to understand that this is their basic tendencies and potentially … reflect on their behaviour and whether it in fact takes into the needs of others,” he said in an interview Monday.
He added that it might also help provide context and a better understanding of issues raised by the Occupy movement or the behaviour of white-collar criminals such as Bernie Madoff.

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