In fact, it probably falls into the 'no shit Sherlock' category but researchers have found that, among other things, upper class people are more more likely to 'cut up other road users'.
Who'd a thunk it?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
I'm sure it comes as no surprise...
(39 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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Wait, it's an American study, and they ranked people's class by using their car's make, model and age? Really rich people don't drive, they have chauffeurs.
I call bad science. Also bad headline. Should be 'US wealthy more badly behaved'.
Posted 13 years ago # -
My own unscientific study - ie the times I'm even paying attention to my pet theory - is that low end luxury saloons (your 3-series BMW) are driven by angry wee boys and the actual luxury saloons are driven by sedate old ladies and gents.
Posted 13 years ago # -
In my unscientific study, Vauxhall Corsas come high up the list of models being driven badly.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I have found Morris Minor drivers to be curteous and safe on the roads. Ford Capri drivers less so.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Science isn't so bad, its not an isolated study. There is the classic example cited in Freakonomics where they guy runs a business selling doughnuts with an honesty box system. I'm most offices he actually received as much or a little more than the full stated price of the doughnuts except in the executive offices where he got consistently less.
Its part of a raft of studies showing how sociopaths rise to the top. I think it may even begin to answer why the elite always screw over everyone else even tho we are usually such an altruistic species.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Haven't read that yet. Is there any discussion of the simple mechanical availability of coins amongst the various levels of peoples, such as paupers dealing in pennies whilst shiny bigwigs have little need of spare change?
Posted 13 years ago # -
All paperboys know that they'll get bigger Christmas tips from 'poor' houses than from 'rich' houses.
I've done various charity supermarket bag packs over the years. You get more money at a supermarket in a poorer area.
I'm sure similar things have been seen with church collections.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"All paperboys know that they'll get bigger Christmas tips from 'poor' houses than from 'rich' houses."
My paper round was split between the single most affluent area of our small town (HUGE houses set back down private driveways, a couple with fishing rights to the adjoining river and the like); and an old folks' home.
Without fail the old folks would seek me out at Christmas with a wee envelope with a couple of quid in. Once. One single time I got an envelope from one of the big houses.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I've been there Anth. I used to cycle round the farms to collect for Christian Aid. I always got something in the envelopes at the cottages. At the big house I was told one year "we give in different ways" and went away with nothing.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"we give in different ways"
I have some sympathy with that line of reasoning in charity payments. I've got various direct debits and things set up for some selected charities, and you do start feeling 'well if I give to everyone....'.
That said, I usually find a few quid if someone comes round the door (generally get the RNLI every year - other than that it's just clothes bags, but the last time I filled one and left it as directed and on the correct day it didn't get picked up)
Posted 13 years ago # -
And just to buck the trend, I never give to people coming round the door and live in a council estate. Although I may just be living up to a cultural stereo type.
Posted 13 years ago # -
researchers concealed themselves close to a crossroads in the Bay Area of San Francisco and spied on drivers
It's really very specific to California, it doesn't even represent the US. As a commenter pointed out on the Grauniad site, American notions of class and appropriate standards of behaviour are rather different from European ones.
Posted 13 years ago # -
But they're observing them doing very simple things - who waits and who pushes in - and I can't say much of it struck me as peculiarly American.
Anyway, even if the measures of class and behavioural norms are culturally specific, it's still possible to make a general observation that however you define them, people ranked as 'upper' class as more likely to violate their own culture's norms.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I've never been comfortable with charities. If I force myself to articulate it, I guess I believe that experts should decide what activities conducive to the good of society are most deserving of my support at any given time, rather than having to make a subjective assessment personally.
I could almost envision some kind of organised system where people would have a certain proportion of their income deducted around payday and used to keep all the good stuff going, like social welfare, help for the elderly, soldiers, kittens, the health system, etc. etc. ;-)
Conversely, if something is undeserving to the point that it can't be justified to the real experts at targeted wealth distribution in HMG, I'm loath to be guilted into supporting it personally just because it *sounds* good.
Makes me sound a bit evil though.
Posted 13 years ago # -
check out 'first as tragedy, then as farce' by RSAnimate on youtube for a clearer articulation about whats wrong with charity.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Interesting thread drift, but since we're all revealing our inner scrooges...
With the exception of a single donation earlier this year, I don't give money to charity. Whilst clearly an skewed viewpoint, I've seen how some charities spend money, and therefore am never comfortable that the funds would actually end up in the right place.
Instead I give time heavily to two charities, tend not to claim back travel expenses and am comfortable knowing what they get paid for the services I provide (voluntary ambulance sector, before it all sounds too odd).
Clearly many charities would fall apart if everyone did this, so it's not overly logical.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I work for a charity and frankly I don't like the third sector. (thankfully my charity works as more of a social enterprise than a real charity - phew!)
I agree that it is difficult to know where the money goes and honestly I see it spent on some ridiculous stuff by some of our bigger, very well meaning, very good at advertising and marketing themselves, but ultimately awful at what they do, partners.
I suggest giving to local charities that have a visible impact on your local community.
I also recommend "Dead Aid" a book by Dambisa Moyo.
She explains how Aid has basically set africa back to being worse off than it was 40 years ago. (I work heavily in Africa and can only agree)Posted 13 years ago # -
@Darkerside Actually they may do ~20% better if you claimed the expenses, then donated the same amount back under the Gift Aid scheme (if applicable)...
I do give regularly, through a centralised fund, that doesn't have western, post-modern, liberal social values (HMG!); although I suppose I do give via HMG too...
I'll draw a veil over the details under the "right hand shouldn't know what the left hand does" clause.
@ruggtomcat - great animation, really illustrates the ideas, even though I might disagree with some of the development, I do tend to pitch charity at root cause eradication rather than symptoms.
Still, it amazes me that we have so many emergency services funded by charity (RNLI, air ambulance, etc) - surely this is a HMG concern?
Robert
Posted 13 years ago # -
Oh, and if this isn't an example of a CCE thread ceilidhing, then I don't know what is!
Robert
Posted 13 years ago # -
But they're observing them doing very simple things - who waits and who pushes in - and I can't say much of it struck me as peculiarly American.
The problem is that they don't really know much about the "who".
"the scientists ranked the driver's class on a scale of one to five according to the model, age and appearance of the car."
And from the report:
"There was high agreement among the four coders for vehicle status (α = 0.95), driver sex (α = 0.98), and driver age (α = 0.87)."A whole raft of assumptions made about who drives what type of car, and why, and what constitutes "high status" or "low status" vehicle remain unchallenged through this approach. Although it appears they have taken measures to prevent the people conducting the survey influencing each other's results, their key assumption about cars revealing the class of their owners is inherently flawed.
Anyway, even if the measures of class and behavioural norms are culturally specific, it's still possible to make a general observation that however you define them, people ranked as 'upper' class as more likely to violate their own culture's norms.
Which assumes that there are shared norms that everyone agrees on. Patently this is not the case. What is deemed unethical is dependent to some extent on context, and varies according to class, occupation, locale, family and peer group.
It is also not clear from the supporting material for the report how exactly they decided who was "upper" and who "lower" class in the lab studies. I cannot access the full article as it's behind a paywall, so this remains unclear.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Anth: "I have some sympathy with that line of reasoning in charity payments"
Fair enough but I was ten years old on a second-hand bike, giving up my weekend to ride around a dozen farms collecting for a minister who barely acknowledged the effort. It was a learning experience of course but not about charity.
Posted 13 years ago # -
One commenter on the Grauniad puts it quite well:
Individuals who drive cars that the observers personally valued as more costly tend not to wait at cross roads
When questioned by Berkeley researchers, people from lower income brackets report having better self-standards of behaviour
People from higher income brackets over-estimate their acheivements to Berkeley researchers
People from lower income backgrounds are susceptible to the influence of input from Berkeley researchers
He might have added "people from the Bay area of San Francisco" as a qualifier.
Posted 13 years ago # -
here is an interesting related article http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1091678--weeding-out-corporate-psychopaths
Posted 13 years ago # -
@ruggtomcat, it's quite likely there are lots of psycho execs and managers out there, maybe most of us have met at least one.
The problem with the theory is it basically says these "few individuals" are to blame for the global economic crisis. The old "bad apples" idea. This seems a misleading fallacy.
Did a "few individuals" force millions of households across the Western world to get up to their scalps in debt, buying houses, holiday villas, cars, consumer durables, etc, that they could not realistically afford? Did a "few individuals" create huge speculative property bubbles on a global level too?
Posted 13 years ago # -
well, yeah. The conditions for this to happen were decided upon by a very small number of people. The major directions of international finance were not decided by the millions of people buying houses, but the thousands of people selling debt. Societies have always been controlled by a relatively small elite. Weather they got there by democratic election, hereditary, force or economic acumen. Its not such a great leap to suggest that the current system by which people gain power promotes greed and discourages philanthropy.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Yeah, poor people sat in their houses and decided that they would sort themselves out for mortgage and then they decided to bundle those mortgages up and sell them as financial derivatives and called it the sub-prime market. Yep, that's how finance works. A consumer driven market if ever there was one. If only they'd been more canny with their finances we could have avoided this whole credit crunch thing. Bloody poor people. Always coming along wanting stuff and screwing things up for everyone else.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I would suggest it's necessary to look further back into history to see the roots of the current crisis. It's a systemic issue that's been developing for quite a while so far as I can see. At least as far back as 1979, if not before.
Maybe you remember slogans like "property owning democracy", or the big share issues in the privatisations of the 1980s?
Posted 13 years ago # -
Well, since the sub-prime mortgage market kicked of the in US, we only need to go back as far as the 1980 Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act. It had its parallels in the UK - the lowering of reserve asset ratios and the loosening of restrictions on access to credit. Same thing. Debt is good. Officially sanctioned and encouraged. People, please, buy stuff, especially houses.
Posted 13 years ago # -
@Instography, the problem seems to have been that private debt became the answer to problems that, not so long ago, government felt it had a responsibility to solve in different ways. Yes, this was all in the interests of the financial industry, who've had 'their people' in government for too long.
Posted 13 years ago #
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