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.

Details

Title
High-status individuals are held to higher ethical standards
Author
Trautmann, Stefan T. 1 ; Wang, Xianghong 2 ; Wang, Yijie 3 ; Xu, Yilong 4 

 University of Heidelberg, Alfred-Weber-Institute for Economics, Heidelberg, Germany (GRID:grid.7700.0) (ISNI:0000 0001 2190 4373) 
 Renmin University of China, School of Economics, Beijing, China (GRID:grid.24539.39) (ISNI:0000 0004 0368 8103) 
 Shandong University, Institute of Governance, Tsingtao, China (GRID:grid.27255.37) (ISNI:0000 0004 1761 1174) 
 Utrecht University, Utrecht School of Economics, Utrecht, The Netherlands (GRID:grid.5477.1) (ISNI:0000 0001 2034 6234) 
Pages
15111
Publication year
2023
Publication date
2023
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2864401139
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.