The influence of affluence on prosocial behavior

Popular wisdom has it that excessive material wealth leads to decreased prosocial behavior. This notion has empirical support in the literature, but there are open questions about how strong, specific, and general this effect is. Here, we aimed to test the hypothesis that increased SES is associated with decreased prosocial behavior in a high-powered laboratory task. We find thatthere are no statistically significant differences in generosity as a function of social class. However, there are subtle - yet statistically significant - patterns linking SES and dark triad personality traits. We conclude that the relationship between SES and social behavior isconsiderably more nuanced than commonly believed.