Savannah Mulvey-White

Individual Essay

Descriptive Essay

Global Issue: Wealth and its effect on morals

Cost/Benefit the Theory and Dishonesty

There are many negative connotations regarding wealth and its impacts on the mind and

social interactions. One of the most popular is the assumption regarding the Cost Benefit

Analysis frame of mind and how people who are known as wealthy will think with less regard to

consequence and the negative impact of their actions. This is also known as business thinking

strategy. The thought of the matter is that thinking in the Cost Benefit frame of mind will further

lead you to cheating, lying, and stealing from those who serve no purpose on the benefit side of

things.

Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke University, has spent years researching cheating in

countless experiments over the years. The results of these tests which probe people to cheat, lie,

or steal, show that the gain, loss, and chances of being caught do not really weigh in as major

impacts. (NPR) Now if these certain elements have little to no impact on making dishonest

decisions in business, or in regards to wealth in general what purpose do punishments like jail,

police, and fines serve. When thinking under the influence of a cost benefit analysis the people in

question typically would regard themselves as good honest people. Everyone wants to believe

how good they are and how honest, and thinking in that frame of mind definitely does not change

that.
 Coming into control of a lot of money can change the way you think, but if this frame of

mind has such a small impact where does the stigma of money makers having poor morals even

come from? Removing certain aspects of our economy and our wealth can greatly impact the

amount of people who nationally cheat the system. For example one test that Ariely performed

exposed how certain forms of money exchange and interaction will increase the stealing and

cheating in the experiments. The moment something is one step removed from money ... people

can cheat more and [still] feel good about themselves. It basically relieves people from the moral

shackles. And, the reason this worries me so much is because if you think about modern society,

we are creating lots of cashless economy. The exchanging of credit for cash creates a separate

step to where you do not directly steal, but you still are stealing. This provides a guilt free

version of cheating and lying which does not impact morals of these money-makers in a negative

way. In many ways the way society is set up now a days almost promotes scandals in regards to

money and big business.

Whether or not thinking in a cost benefit way is a real issue affecting people in

todays time, or just simply the way that exchanges of money are set up in current issues are

causing an increase in cheating and lying, the fact of the matter is that temptations from money

are frequently associated with a change in morals. Simple adjustments to tests in the labs show

that humans are prone to cheating and lying especially when they find ways to make it more guilt

free, and less morally troubling. Wealth has many negative effects on morality and this has been

proven in real life, and in test centers. The temptation for the benefits of money, or the exchange

of other items for money is something that really improves the chances that wealth will cause

cheating, lying, and other negative social cost. Thinking in a cost benefit analysis, even if the

theory is flawed, is considered a real issue. One that prevents the human mind from thinking with
their morals first, instead they think with their business before all else, and that is one flaw

within our society that is incredibly difficult to correct.

Citation

NPR. "The 'Truth' About Why We Lie, Cheat And Steal." NPR. NPR, 4 June 2012. Web.

06 Feb. 2017.