Research suggests rich people tend to be more selfish – but why is that?

From Disney’s Scrooge McDuck and Cruella de Vil to DC Comics’ Lex Luthor to and Mr Burns in the Simpsons, there are plenty of examples of wealthy people using their money and power in evil ways. But is there any truth to the stereotype that rich people are mean?

There are many rich people who act benevolently, including philanthropists who give a lot of their money away. However, research in psychology has found a clear link between wealth and unethical behaviour, including an increased tendency to cheat and steal.

One study found that wealthy upper class people were more likely to have a selfish focus on their interests. Conversely, another study found that people from lower social classes were more likely to feel compassion for other people’s suffering.

Researchers have also established that drivers of expensive cars are less likely to behave altruistically than other drivers. They are less likely to slow down to let pedestrians cross or to let other drivers join the road.

They are also more likely to drive aggressively and disobey traffic rules. One study found that the likelihood of the drivers slowing down to let pedestrians cross the road decreased by 3% for every US$1,000 (£738.50) that their car was worth.

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But it’s not just that these people are bad drivers. A study by Finnish psychologists found that owners of luxury cars had a higher prevalence of negative personality traits such as being disagreeable, stubborn and lacking in empathy.

In simple terms, it seems that rich people are less likely to be altruistic.

What could explain this link? Perhaps wealth turns people bad, isolating them from others and making them more selfish. Or is it that people who are already ruthless and selfish are more likely to become extremely wealthy?

One way of clarifying this is to think in terms of what psychologists refer as dark triad personalities. These are people who have combined traits of psychopathy, narcissism and machiavellianism (acting immorally to get power). These traits – which all involve selfishness and low empathy – almost always overlap and can be difficult to distinguish from one another. They exist on a continuum in the population as a whole.

Research shows that dark triad personalities tend to possess higher levels of status and wealth. A study following participants for 15 years found that people with dark triad traits gravitated towards the top of the organisational hierarchy and were wealthier.

In line with those findings, according to some estimates, the base rate for clinical levels of psychopathy is three times higher among corporate boards than in the overall population. Research also indicates that young people with dark triad traits are more highly represented on business courses at university or college.

Why do mean people seek wealth?

In my view, the correlation between wealth and nastiness is quite easy to explain. In my book The Fall, I suggest that some people experience a state of intense psychological separation. Their psychological boundaries are so strong that they feel disconnected from other people and the world, which can come with a lack of empathy or emotional connection.

One effect of this state of disconnection is a sense of psychological lack. People feel incomplete, as if something is missing. In turn, this generates an impulse to accumulate wealth, status and power, as a way of compensating.

On the flip side, people who feel a sense of connection others and to the world don’t feel a sense of incompleteness and so don’t tend to have a strong desire for power or wealth.

At the same time, a lack of empathy can make it easier to attain success. It means you can be ruthless in your pursuit of wealth and status, manipulating and exploiting others. If other people suffer as the result of your actions – and lose their livelihood or reputation – it doesn’t concern you as much. Without empathy, you can’t sense the suffering you cause.

So psychological disconnection has two disastrous effects: it generates a strong desire for wealth and status, together with the ruthlessness that makes wealth and success easily attainable.

Wealth and wellbeing

Of course, I’m not claiming that all wealthy people are mean. Some people become wealthy by accident, or because they have brilliant ideas, or even because they want to use their wealth to benefit others. But given the factors described above, it is not surprising that there is a high incidence of meanness among the wealthy.

The studies cited above imply that the link seems to be proportional, in that the more wealthy a person is, the more likely they are to possess dark triad traits. And we know that most dark traits, such as psychopathy are linked to similar or lower levels of happiness to others. An exception is a certain type of narcissism, called grandiose narcissism, which is linked to higher happiness.

A great deal of research in psychology has shown only a weak correlation between wealth and wellbeing. A 2010 study by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found that happiness increased in line with income up to around US$75,000 (£54,9612) a year (equivalent to US$110,000 in 2025). However, this is where the correlation ended. According to the study, after US$110,000 a year, it doesn’t matter how rich you become; it won’t make you any happier.

Newer research, however, has found slightly different results. A recent study by Kahneman and colleagues indicated that happiness continues to increase with income for a proportion of rich people – but not for an unhappy minority. A 2022 study also found that the threshold at which happiness plateaus depends on the country – in societies with greater inequality, there was a higher threshold.

What’s more, another study by Kahneman and other colleagues found that, for people who were preoccupied with striving for financial success, life satisfaction actually decreased as income increased.

Overall though, evidence suggests that wealthy people are unlikely to attain the contentment they seek through money alone. Their wealth and status don’t take away their sense of incompleteness.

This might be another reason why extremely rich people tend to act unethically – as their sense of disconnection grows stronger. In contrast, research shows a strong link between altruism and wellbeing. So perhaps that is where we should focus our attention – not on becoming rich, but becoming kind.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.