Under the Threat of an Epidemic: People with Higher Subjective Socioeconomic Status Show More Unethical Behaviors

Ting Wang; Xue Wang; Tonglin Jiang; Shiyao Wang; Zhansheng Chen

doi:10.3390/ijerph18063170

Under the Threat of an Epidemic: People with Higher Subjective Socioeconomic Status Show More Unethical Behaviors

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Mar 19;18(6):3170. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18063170.

Authors

Ting Wang¹, Xue Wang², Tonglin Jiang¹, Shiyao Wang³, Zhansheng Chen³

Affiliations

¹ School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
² Marketing Department, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China.
³ Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China.

Abstract

This research focused on the psychological impact of an epidemic. We conducted a cross-sectional survey and two empirical experiments to examine how an epidemic would influence unethical behaviors and how the effect differs in people of different subjective socioeconomic statuses. These studies consistently demonstrated that subjective socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between an epidemic and unethical behaviors. Specifically, the perceived severity of an epidemic positively predicts the unethical behaviors of people with a high socioeconomic status, but it does not predict the unethical behaviors of people with a low socioeconomic status. These findings elucidate the effects of epidemics and bring theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords: epidemic; social class; socioeconomic status; unethical behaviors.

MeSH terms

Cross-Sectional Studies
Epidemics*
Humans
Social Class*