Material Scarcity and Unethical Economic Behavior: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

\n Individuals around the globe experience different forms of material resource scarcity in terms of aspects such as hunger, thirst, or financial strains. As experiences of material scarcity have been found to make individuals more risk-taking, impulsive, and focused on regaining resources in the short-term, a growing body of research has investigated how such scarcity affects moral economic behavior. Yet, findings remain mixed and at times contradictory, thus calling for a systematic meta-analytical review on this overarching topic. In this pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis, we evaluate qualitatively and quantitatively how material resource scarcity affects moral economic behavior. We analyze a comprehensive dataset including 44 published and unpublished studies comprising a total of 6,921 respondents across four distinct types of material scarcity: financial scarcity, physiological scarcity, scarcity reminders, and lower social class. Our findings show that acute scarcity significantly increases the propensity to engage in unethical economic behavior (gfinancial = .24, gphysiological = .39, greminders = .32). Importantly, we find no evidence that chronic experiences of scarcity in the form of low social class affect unethical economic behavior (gsocial class = .02). These results appear robust to the influence of publication bias and contextual sensitivity. We discuss how these findings advance our understanding of the psychological and moral consequences of scarcity and elaborate on implications for public policy.