There are lies, damned lies, and statistics . . .

As once remarked by Mark Twain.

Headline in the Los Angeles Times this morning:

Wealthy, motivated by greed, are more likely to cheat, study finds

But of course . . .

People driving expensive cars were more likely than other motorists to cut off drivers and pedestrians at a four-way-stop intersection in the San Francisco Bay Area, UC Berkeley researchers observed. Those findings led to a series of experiments that revealed that people of higher socioeconomic status were also more likely to cheat to win a prize, take candy from children and say they would pocket extra change handed to them in error rather than give it back.

But let's talk about the thoroughness of this "study" done by Paul Piff, a doctoral candidate at UC Berkeley doing his thesis on "attitudes towards the Occupy movement."

First, the intersection experiment.  

The driving experiments offered a way to test the hypothesis "naturalistically," he said. Trained observers hid near a downtown Berkeley intersection and noted the makes, model years and conditions of bypassing cars. Then they recorded whether drivers waited their turn.

It turned out that people behind the wheels of the priciest cars were four times as likely as drivers of the least expensive cars to enter the intersection when they didn't have the right of way. The discrepancy was even greater when it came to a pedestrian trying to exercise a right of way.

What is the problem here, putting aside his description of this being done "naturalistically" which makes no sense (what, "empirically" was not available as an adverb)?  Well, for one this is one intersection.  In Berkeley. Populated largely by wealthy people.  It could be that a majority of people drive like idiots, regardless of what they drive - I would like to see what he would have concluded had his "trained observers" staked out an intersection in downtown Oakland.  What, people in the barrio don't drive the "priciest cars?"  Think again - I have seen tricked out Yukons parked outside soup kitchens in Santa Ana, where recipients of handouts have gotten in . . . and driven away.

And what is an example of the "priciest cars?"  Does a Prius in Berkeley count?  Or do those folks get a pass for being environmentally correct.

But Piff went back to the lab . . .

So back in the laboratory, Piff and his colleagues conducted five more tests to measure unethical behavior — and to connect that behavior to underlying attitudes toward greed.

For instance, the team used a standard questionnaire to get college students to assess their own socioeconomic status and asked how likely subjects were to behave unethically in eight different scenarios.

In one of the quandaries, students were asked to imagine that they bought coffee and a muffin with a $10 bill but were handed change for a $20. Would they keep the money?

In another hypothetical scenario, students realized their professor made a mistake in grading an exam and gave them an A instead of the B they deserved. Would they ask for a grade change?

The patterns from the road held true in the lab — those most willing to engage in unethical behavior were the ones with the highest social status.

One possible explanation was that wealthy people are simply more willing to acknowledge their selfish side. But that wasn't the issue here. When test subjects of any status were asked to imagine themselves at a high social rank, they helped themselves to more candies from a jar they were told was meant for children in another lab.

Okay, I have a question - did Piff actually verify that the students reporting a high socioeconomic status did, indeed, have that?  And were there actions compared against those who reported themselves as poor?  As with the intersection test, I wonder whether the group chosen was slanted, that is, out of 100 students, 35 identify themselves as wealthy, and so only that group is administered the test, and if a majority of those "cheat," why then it must be that in any situation, wealthy people cheat - without looking to see what percentage of students identifying themselves as poor might cheat.

And even if the two socioeconomic were compared, how is a finding based on people "imagining" themselves at a high social rank sound?  If I am a student at Berkeley who is part of the Occupy movement, and I am told to "imagine" that I am a wealthy CEO who just got a multimillion dollar bonus . . . would I possibly paint my imaginary status in the worst light possible?

Of course, what is the real story here?  It does not matter whether the methods used were sound or not - to a newspaper like the LA Times . . . rich people are greedy.  That is what they want to report and that is what their readership wants to hear.  And what could be more compelling than "experiments" proving this out of a great academic institution such as UC Berkeley?

I do not doubt Mr. Piff's intelligence.  I wonder if he does not begin the study with some bias.  And for all I know, the LA Times is not doing him any favors with inaccurate reporting of his experiments.  But for many, this serves to confirm that the rich are evil and greedy . . . and deserve punishment of some sort.

BTW, have you seen that photograph of an alleged credit card receipt where a wealthy banker left a 1% tip and wrote a note to the server to "get a real job?"  It's a hoax.  But I note that based upon the comments to this story on The Smoking Gun, some people simply do not want to believe it is a fake.  Tipping is not common in Europe; therefore, Europeans must be greedy plutocrats . . .