Do Distinctions of Status and Hierarchy Orientation Effect the Association Between Students with Economic System Career Goals and Values of Greed and Dominance?

Abstract

This study investigated the association between people who work in economic system fields with above-average measures of greed and dominance values. Variables relating to social status and support for systems of hierarchy were included in the analysis to see if these factors effected the expected correlations between economic system career goals and high greed and dominance values. Participants consisted of 297 college and university students in the Northeastern United states who attended either a state school or an elite school, the latter defined as one with Ivy League status or one of US News and World Report’s “Top Ten Schools”. Three binary independent variables were investigated in this population: career field orientation (economic system versus noneconomic system), career hierarchy orientation (hierarchy-enhancing versus hierarchy attenuating) and school status (elite versus state). These variables were analyzed for main effects on measures of personal values that related to greed and dominance. Analyses were also performed to see if an interaction existed between school status and the two career orientation variables, with the expectation that attending an elite school would raise the greed and dominance values of the student body as a whole, which would produce a lower mean differential between distinctions of career orientation at an elite school than at a state school. Additionally, an analysis was performed to see if the presumed significant main effect of career field orientation on the greed and dominance variables would be made insignificant when career hierarchy was added to the model. Results indicated that as expected, an economic system career field orientation and hierarchy-enhancing career orientation both correlated significantly with higher measures of greed and dominance values. Also as expected, when hierarchy orientation was controlled for, career field orientation was no longer a significant predictor. However, there was no significant interaction as expected between the school status and career orientation variables. These findings support the association between economic system professions and high measures of greed and dominance, but also encourage further investigation into how variables that measure one’s relationship to power and hierarchy moderate the effects of career orientation on personal values.