High-status individuals are held to higher ethical standards.

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.

Value of statistical life year in extreme poverty: a randomized experiment of measurement methods in rural Burkina Faso.

Background: Value of a Statistical Life Year (VSLY) provides an important economic measure of an individual's trade-off between health risks and other consumption, and is a widely used policy parameter. Measuring VSLY is complex though, especially in low-income and low-literacy communities.

Methods: Using a large randomized experiment (N = 3027), we study methodological aspects of stated-preference elicitation with payment cards (price lists) in an extreme poverty context.

Experiencing risk: Higher-order risk attitudes in description- and experience-based decisions.

Risky decisions are often characterized by (a) imprecision about consequences and their likelihoods that can be reduced by information collection, and by (b) unavoidable background risk. This article addresses both aspects by eliciting risk attitude, prudence, and temperance in decisions from description and decisions from experience. The results reveal a novel description-experience gap for prudence and replicate the known gap for risky decisions.

Gender Bias in the Evaluation of Teaching Materials.

Gender differences in university teaching evaluations are well established, showing less favorable assessments of female instructors. It has also been shown that these differences cannot be linked to differences in students' course performance, which would justify differences in evaluations. The less favorable assessments are thus either due to differences in aspects that do not affect student performance, but do affect their class experience (e.

Marriage, parenthood and social network: Subjective well-being and mental health in old age.

Parenthood, marital status and social networks have been shown to relate to the well-being and mental health of older people. Using a large sample of respondents aged 50 and older from 16 European countries, we identify the associations of well-being and mental health with family status. Making use of detailed social network data of the respondents, we also identify how different social support networks correlate with the well-being and health indicators.

Testosterone inhibits trust but promotes reciprocity.

The steroid hormone testosterone has been associated with behavior intended to obtain or maintain high social status. Although such behavior is typically characterized as aggressive and competitive, it is clear that high social status is achieved and maintained not only through antisocial behavior but also through prosocial behavior. In the present experiment, we investigated the impact of testosterone administration on trust and reciprocity using a double-blind randomized control design.

Social Class and (Un)Ethical Behavior: A Framework, With Evidence From a Large Population Sample.

Differences in ethical behavior between members of the upper and lower classes have been at the center of civic debates in recent years. In this article, we present a framework for understanding how class affects ethical standards and behaviors. We apply the framework using data from a large Dutch population sample.

Prospect theory or construal level theory? Diminishing sensitivity vs. psychological distance in risky decisions.

Attitudes toward risks are central to organizational decisions. These attitudes are commonly modeled by prospect theory. Construal level theory has been proposed as an alternative theory of risky choice, accounting for psychological distance deriving from temporal, spatial and social aspects of risk that are typical of agency situations.

Pricing risk and ambiguity: the effect of perspective taking.

In the valuation of uncertain prospects, a difference is often observed between selling and buying perspectives. This paper distinguishes between risk (known probabilities) and ambiguity (unknown probabilities) in decisions under uncertainty and shows that the valuation disparity increases under ambiguity compared to risk. It is found that both the comparative versus noncomparative evaluation of risky and ambiguous prospects and the uniqueness of the valuation perspective (either seller or buyer) moderate this increase in the disparity under ambiguity.