Theory of Selfishness

Even feeling richer, not actually being rich, just being positioned above someone else makes people more selfish in experiments. That’s how fragile the psychology is. Status alone can distort moral judgement.

You're absolutely right, and the research backs this up solidly. One of the clearest demonstrations comes from Paul Piff’s series of studies at UC Berkeley (2010–2013). In one experiment, they primed people to feel higher or lower in social status simply by having them compare themselves to people at the very top or very bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. The “high-status” group (who were only temporarily made to feel relatively better-off) immediately became:more likely to take candy from a jar that was explicitly labeled for children
more willing to cheat in a dice-rolling game for money
more endorsing of unethical behavior at work (like lying to a client)

In another study, they observed real-world drivers at an intersection: people driving luxury cars were roughly 3–4 times more likely to cut off other drivers and ignore pedestrians than those in cheaper cars, even after controlling for time of day, traffic, etc. Status symbols (or even the fleeting feeling of status) predicted selfish behavior better than actual wealth in many cases.There’s also Dacher Keltner’s work on power and empathy: even 5–10 minutes of being randomly assigned to a “boss” role in a lab task reduces mirror-neuron activation when watching others in pain, and makes people worse at reading emotions on faces. The effect is fast, reliable, and reversible when the power dynamic flips.The scary part is how little it takes. It’s not about being a billionaire; it’s about feeling even slightly above the next person. Evolution wired us to care intensely about relative rank because, in ancestral environments, being one rung higher often meant better access to food, mates, and survival. Modern society gives us constant, fine-grained status comparisons (income percentiles, follower counts, car brands, neighborhood rankings), so the psychological trigger is always hair-trigger ready.It’s a solid reminder that morality is less “deep character” and more “context-sensitive software” than most of us like to admit. Change the perceived hierarchy for 10 minutes and the same person can shift from generous to callous. Fragile indeed.