Money, Emotions, and Ethics Across Individuals and Countries
Journal of Business Ethics · 2014 · Volume 125 · Issue 1
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-013-1914-9
Abstract
This article presents two separate but closely related studies. We used a first sample to investigate the relationships among individuals’ reports of their income and their subjective well-being, and their approval of unethical behavior in 27 countries and a second sample to investigate the relationship between corruption in 55 countries and their populace’s aggregated feelings of subjective well-being (happiness). Analysis of data from 27,762 working professionals showed that, although reported feelings of subjective well-being werenegativelyrelated to their approval of unethical behaviors, income waspositivelyrelated to their approval of unethical behaviors. In addition, the effects for feelings of subjective well-being were particularly strong for high-income people. Analyses also showed that, after controlling for economic development and other country-level factors, corruption was negatively related to a country’s feelings of happiness. These findings suggest that feelings of subjective well-being may lead to more ethical, less corrupt behavior and that the tolerance of unethical, corrupt behavior may lead to less collective happiness and subjective well-being.
Keywords
Ethics, Emotions, Income, Subjective well-being, Culture, Corruption
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