When I was a kid, in the days before cellphones, I exclusively drove junkers. When I broke down in a poor neighborhood, I rarely stood around for five minutes before somebody offered to help. But I’d wait all day in a rich neighborhood.

More recently, I’ve boycotted the Costco in Carlsbad. At the Costco in lower-income Vista, which is equally crowded, my odds of snagging a food sample are sharply higher, while the risks are far lower that I will be stuck in a pileup behind a patron who stops his cart in the center of a main aisle.

Although Piff is fairly certain that wealth breeds unethical behavior, he’s humble about the deeper psychological causes. Possible explanations include the greater freedom, inflated feelings of entitlement, and enhanced ability to manage consequences that come with rising wealth.

I’m frankly less interested in why than in what do about it, aside from shopping in Vista.

Managers tend to give a pass to their top performers, but this is precisely where they should focus more ethics training and audit resources. Although consumers gravitate toward Realtors, financial advisers, lawyers and other professionals who seem successful, they should know this might raise the odds of unethical behavior.

And investors should understand that lousy ethics is bad for business. Three little words make the case: Enron, WorldCom and Madoff. But it’s hard to find ethics in a proxy statement. To raise the odds, super-investor Warren Buffett favors companies where top managers own large portions of company stock, so their incentives are aligned with his.

But what about those of us who aspire to wealth? Science also suggests that it pays to avoid being a jerk: Being generous and altruistic makes your life longer, healthier and happier.


