This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Paul K. Piff, UC Irvine associate professor of psychology, has officially been recognized for what millions of frustrated commuters have long suspected: The fancier the car, the worse the driver.
Piff and his colleagues were awarded this year's Economics Ig Nobel Prize—bestowed for achievements that "first make people LAUGH, and then make them THINK"—for their landmark 2012 study, "Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research, which has aged like a fine luxury sedan, is the culmination of nearly two decades of work. "As a research psychologist who's long been interested in the psychology of money and wealth, my team and I spent maybe 20 years documenting that rising wealth and increasing money seem to make people more self-interested, entitled, greedy," Piff said in his acceptance speech Sept. 3 in Zurich, Switzerland.
"Wealth seems to free people from the burdensome shackles of caring about other humans," Piff said. Among the study's most eyebrow-raising findings: Drivers of expensive, late-model vehicles were significantly more likely to cut off other cars at a busy four-way intersection. In one memorable experiment, Piff's lab placed a bowl of candy that was, as he put it, "explicitly identified as being reserved for children"—and found that wealthier individuals took twice as much.
"I kid you not," Piff told the audience. To drive the point home, Piff produced a canister of candy belonging to his 3-year-old son, Oli, who had collected it himself the day before at the Museum of Chocolate. "He doesn't know that I have this," Piff confessed to the crowd before helping himself to a piece anyway.
"Oh, that is really good," he declared, as audience members dressed in banana suits edged closer. In his remarks, Piff thanked his collaborators and his wife, Pia Dietze, UCI assistant professor of psychology, "for encouraging me always in this work" and offered a tongue-in-cheek nod to a rather larger group: "The global elite, for always showing us how reproducible our findings are on a global scale." He paused for effect before delivering the kicker: Taking candy from children, he said, is really "the least of our concerns." Piff joins a storied list of Ig Nobel honorees from the UC system, including UCLA's Jaimie Arona Krems, who this year won the Peace Prize for research on why people sometimes want vicious friends—a finding that may or may not explain a few of those four-way intersection incidents. The Ig Nobel ceremony featured a trophy shaped like a giant mushroom growing atop a human foot, which, coincidentally, is also how it feels to be cut off in traffic by someone in a brand-new BMW, reportedly.
Piff et al, Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2012). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1118373109 Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Provided by University of California, Irvine Bachelor's in mathematical biology, Master's in creative writing. Well-traveled with unique perspectives on science and language.
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