经济不平等指的是经济资源在社会中的不平等分配。进入21世纪之后，世界上近一半的国家经历了经济不平等的加剧，且不平等程度还在持续扩大。经济不平等的问题被认为是当今世界面临的最大挑战，也是造成社会动荡的重要因素。随着不平等的加剧，全世界越来越多的学者开始把目光放到如何理解经济不平等，以及经济不平等的后续影响的研究中来。来自经济学与犯罪学领域的研究者率先关注到了不平等背后的道德问题，并探讨了客观的经济不平等指标(如，Gini系数)与犯罪率的关系，但其研究方法依然局限在相关研究层面，无法揭示其因果关系，因此无法排除两者具有假相关的可能性。此外，经济不平等的客观指标并不能与人们主观感知到的不平等程度完全对应，且主观感知的经济不平等对心理和行为的影响更为显著,甚至与客观经济不平等指标产生相反的影响。因此，我们不仅要关注客观的不平等，更应该将主观感知的不平等纳入到现有的理论和实证研究中。更为重要的是，尽管我们已经对不平等的负面影响有了一定程度的了解，但对于不平等为什么、以及何时会产生负面影响的理解有限。因此，本研究旨在从心理学视角出发，探讨经济不平等对不道德行为的影响，揭示其潜在的心理机制，并检验不平等效应的边界条件。

研究一初步探讨了经济不平等与不道德行为之间的关系，共包含3项子研究。研究1a采用公开数据集(世界价值观调查，标准化全球收入不平等数据库, 世界银行)探讨国家水平的经济不平等(Gini系数)与不道德行为的关系。研究1b招募被试130名，操纵主观感知的经济不平等程度并测量不道德行为意愿，进一步验证两者之间的因果关系。研究1c招募大学生被试198名，操纵主观感知的经济不平等程度并测量真实情境中的不道德行为(异位构词任务)，进一步在行为层面验证经济不平等对不道德行为的影响。三项子研究的结果表明，无论是客观的经济不平等指标还是主观感知的经济不平等程度，均导致了更多的不道德意愿和不道德行为。

研究二进一步探讨经济不平等影响不道德行为的中介机制，共包含3项子研究。研究2a招募被试160名，操纵虚拟社会中的不平等程度，并测量被试感知到的虚拟社会中的道德/竞争规范性氛围、相对剥夺感，以及不道德行为意愿，初步验证中介模型。研究2b招募被试160名，操纵组织情境中的收入不平等程度，测量组织情境中的道德/竞争规范性氛围、相对剥夺感，以及不道德行为意愿，再次在组织情境中验证中介模型。研究2c招募被试199名，操纵实验情境中的报酬收入不平等，并通过数字矩阵任务测量被试的真实不道德行为，进一步在行为层面验证中介模型。研究二的结果再一次验证了经济不平等对于不道德行为的影响，且表明经济不平等显著提升了人们对于社会的不道德规范性氛围和竞争规范性氛围的感知，以及相对剥夺感体验，从而进一步增加了个体的不道德意愿和行为。

研究三探讨了社会经济地位对于经济不平等影响不道德行为的调节效应，共包含4项子研究。研究3a招募被试296名，同时操纵虚拟社会中的不平等程度和社会经济地位，测量被试感知到的虚拟社会中的道德/竞争规范性氛围、相对剥夺感，以及不道德行为意愿，初步验证有调节的中介模型。研究3b招募被试298名，采用第三人称的组织情境，同时操纵组织情境中的收入不平等程度(高、低)和收入水平(高、低)，再次验证有调节的中介模型。研究3c招募被试400名，采用与研究2c相同的不平等操纵方法和不道德行为量化方法，同时操纵被试的报酬收入高低，进一步在行为层面验证有调节的中介模型。研究3d采取不同收益比例(对于高经济地位群体而言)的不道德行为的衡量方法来平衡不同经济地位群体在做出不道德行为后的收益比例，从而解决收益比例不同所带来的可能影响。经济不平等和社会经济地位的操纵和不道德行为的测量同研究3a。结果表明，社会经济地位显著调节了经济不平等与道德规范性氛围((研究3b、3d)，竞争规范性氛围(研究3c)和相对剥夺感的关系(研究3a、3b、3d)，即在经济不平等加剧的背景下，低经济地位者比高经济地位者感受到更加不道德和竞争的社会规范性氛围，以及更多的相对剥夺感，从而更有可能做出不道德行为。但相对于社会层面的中介机制，社会经济地位更多地通过调节个体心理层面的相对剥夺感，从而调节了经济不平等与不道德行为之间的关系。

研究四探讨了经济不平等影响不道德行为的另外一个边界条件，不平等归因的调节作用，包含两项子研究。研究4a招募被试295名，操纵经济不平等感知(高、低)和不平等归因(凸显组、控制组)，探讨不平等的内归因凸显是否会缓解经济不平等造成的消极影响。结果表明，不平等的内归因凸显降低了个体感受到的不道德的社会规范性氛围和相对剥夺感，从而减少了做出不道德行为的可能性。研究4b招募被试592名，同时操纵经济不平等感知(高、低)、社会经济地位(高、低)和不平等归因(凸显组、控制组)，探讨社会经济地位的调节作用是否会在不同水平的不平等归因上存在差异。结果表明，在高不平等条件下，不平等的内归因凸显缓解了高低社会经济地位群体之间所感受到的不道德的社会规范性氛围和相对剥夺感的差异，从而进一步缩小了其做出不道德行为的差异。

本研究基于贫富差距逐渐扩大的社会背景，在心理学视域下探讨了经济不平等与不道德行为的关系、影响机制及边界条件。本研究共采用四个大研究共12项子研究，通过多样化的不平等操纵方法和不道德行为的衡量指标验证了研究假设，从不同层面(社会、个体)揭示了经济不平等这样一种宏观的社会生态因素是如何对微观个体行为产生影响的，丰富了经济不平等的影响机制研究，为后续研究提供了一个较为完整的影响机制理论框架，研究结果具有较高的可重复性和良好的生态效度。本研究所得出的结论也补充和拓展了社会经济地位的道德心理研究，丰富了关于不平等归因后续影响的研究，从而更加全面地构建了经济不平等影响不道德行为的理论框架。本研究的结论也同样为如何在贫富差距较大的社会背景下实施社会治理和培育良好的社会心态提供一定的科学建议。

Economic inequality refers to the unequal distribution of economic resources in society. Since the beginning of the 21st century, nearly half of the countries in the world have experienced an increase in economic inequality, and the degree of inequality continues to grow. The issue of economic inequality is considered to be the greatest challenge facing the world today and an important factor causing social unrest. As inequality has increased, more and more scholars around the world have begun to focus on how to understand economic inequality and its subsequent effects. Researchers from the fields of economics and criminology have been the first to focus on the moral issues behind inequality and discussed the relationship between objective indicators of economic inequality (such as Gini coefficient) and crime rate. However, their research methods were still limited to the level of relevant research, unable to reveal the causal relationship, so the possibility of false correlation between the two cannot be ruled out. In addition, the objective indicators of economic inequality are not exactly corresponding to people's subjective perception of the degree of inequality, and the subjective perception of economic inequality has a more significant impact on psychology and behavior, and even has the opposite impact with the objective indicators of economic inequality. Therefore, we should not only pay attention to objective inequality, but also incorporate subjective perceived inequality into existing theoretical and empirical research. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of economic inequality on unethical behavior from a psychological perspective, reveal its underlying psychological mechanisms, and examine the boundary conditions of inequality effects.

The first study (1a-1c) tentatively explores the relationship between economic inequality and unethical behavior. Study 1a used publicly available datasets (i.e., World Values Survey, Standardized Global Income Inequality Database, World Bank) to explore the relationship between economic inequality (Gini coefficient) and unethical behavior at the country level. Study 1b recruited 130 participants to manipulate subjective perceptions of economic inequality and measure willingness to behave unethically to further verify the causal relationship between economic inequality and unethical behavior. In study 1c, 198 college students were recruited to manipulate the subjective perceived degree of economic inequality and measure unethical behavior in real situations (ectopic formation task), so as to further verify the influence of economic inequality on unethical behavior at the behavioral level. The results of the three studies indicate that both objective indicator of economic inequality and subjective perceived economic inequality lead to more unethical intentions and behaviors.

Study 2 (2a-2c) further explores the mediating mechanisms of economic inequality affecting unethical behavior. In Study 2a, 160 participants were recruited to manipulate the degree of inequality in the virtual society and measure their perceived moral/competitive normative climate, sense of relative deprivation, and willingness to behave unethically in the virtual society to preliminarily verify the mediation model. Study 2b recruited 160 participants, manipulated the degree of income inequality in the organizational context, measured the moral/competitive normative climate, the sense of relative deprivation, and the willingness to behave unethically in the organizational context, and again tested the mediation model in the organizational context. In study 2c, 199 subjects were recruited to manipulate the pay inequality in the experimental situation, and the real unethical behaviors of the subjects were measured by the digital matrix task to further verify the mediation model at the behavioral level. The results of study 2 once again verified the impact of economic inequality on unethical behavior, and showed that economic inequality significantly improved people’s perception of the normative climate of social immorality and competition, as well as the experience of relative deprivation, thus further increasing individuals’ unethical intentions and behaviors.

The third study (3a-3d) explores the moderating effect of socioeconomic status on the influence of economic inequality on unethical behavior. Study 3a recruited 296 participants, manipulated inequality and socioeconomic status in the virtual society, and measured participants’ perceived moral/competitive normative climate, relative deprivation, and willingness to behave unethically in the virtual society to initially verify the moderated mediation model. In study 3b, 298 subjects were recruited to manuscript the degree of income inequality (high and low) and income level (high and low) in the third-person organizational situation in order to verified the moderated mediation model again. In study 3c, 400 subjects were recruited, using the same inequality manipulation and unethical behavior quantification methods as in study 2c. Meanwhile, the pay levels of the subjects were manipulated to further verify the moderated mediation model at the behavioral level. Study 3d adopts the measurement method of unethical behaviors with different income ratios (for high economic status groups) to balance the income ratios of groups with different economic status after unethical behaviors, so as to solve the possible effects brought by different income ratios. The manipulation of economic inequality and socioeconomic status  and the measure of unethical behavior are the same as in Study 3a. The results show that socioeconomic status significantly moderates the relationship between economic inequality and moral normative climate (study 3b, 3d), competitive normative climate (study 3c) and relative deprivation (study 3a, 3b, 3d). that is, under the background of worsening economic inequality, people with low socioeconomic status are more likely than those with high socioeconomic status to feel more immoral and competitive social normative climate, as well as more sense of relative deprivation, so they are more likely to commit unethical behaviors. However, compared with the mediating mechanism at the social level, socioeconomic status moderates the relationship between economic inequality and unethical behavior more by moderating the relative deprivation.

The fourth study (4a-4b) explores another boundary condition of economic inequality affecting unethical behavior, the moderating effect of inequality attribution. In study 4a, 295 subjects were recruited to manipulate the perception of economic inequality (high and low) and the attribution of inequality (salient group and control group), and explore whether the salient of the internal attribution of inequality can alleviate the negative impact of economic inequality. The results show that the salient of the internal attribution of inequality reduces the social normative climate of immorality and the sense of relative deprivation, thus reducing the possibility of unethical behavior. In study 4b, 592 subjects were recruited to manipulate the perception of economic inequality (high and low), socioeconomic status (high and low) and inequality attribution (salient group and control group) to explore whether the moderating effect of socioeconomic status would differ in different levels of inequality attribution. The results show that, under the condition of high inequality, the internal attribution salient of inequality alleviates the difference between the immoral normative climate and the sense of relative deprivation between the groups of high and low socioeconomic status, thus further narrowing the difference between their unethical behaviors.

Based on the social background of the widening gap between the rich and the poor, this study explores the relationship, influence mechanism and boundary conditions between economic inequality and immoral behavior from the perspective of psychology. In this study, a total of 12 sub-studies in four large studies were used to verify the research hypothesis through diversified inequality manipulation methods and measurement indicators of unethical behavior. From different levels (social and individual), it revealed how economic inequality, a macro social ecological factor, has an impact on micro individual behavior, and enriched the research on the influence mechanism of economic inequality. It provides a relatively complete theoretical framework for the subsequent research, and the research results have high repeatability and good ecological validity. The conclusions of this study also supplement and expand the research on the moral psychology of socioeconomic status, enrich the research on the subsequent impact of inequality attribution, and thus construct a more comprehensive theoretical framework of the impact of economic inequality on unethical behavior. The conclusion of this study also provides some scientific suggestions on how to implement social governance and cultivate a good social mentality in the social background with a large gap between the rich and the poor.