The College Fix

Ah, studies. What would we do without them? With the following, probably not much.

A pair of University of Washington economists conducted a study on college economics majors and concluded that they are “less likely to share, less generous to the needy, and more likely to cheat, lie, and steal.”

The researchers noted that one merely taking economics classes (indoctrination) and already-anti-social folks enrolling in those courses (selection) both play a role in the study’s outcome.

The “less likely to share” and “less generous” aspect of the results may lead to some head-scratching, however.

From Sociological Images:

Students at their institution — University of Washington — were asked at registration each semester if they’d like to donate to WashPIRG (a left-leaning public interest group) and ATN (a non-partisan group that lobbies to reduce tuition rates). Bauman and Elaina crunched the data along with students’ chosen majors and classes. They found that econ majors were less likely to donate to either cause (the selection hypothesis) and that non-econ majors who had taken econ classes were less likely to donate than non-majors who hadn’t (the indoctrination hypothesis).

Apparently it didn’t occur to the researchers that a left-wing public interest group and a group which appears to work against the very laws of economics just might not appeal to those studying business-related courses.

Sociologist Amitai Etzioni “takes a stab” at how economics majors’ stoic attitude can be “balanced” by other classes: “In other part [sic] of the academy, he argues — specifying social philosophy, political science, and sociology– there is ‘a great variety of approaches are advanced [sic], thereby leaving students with a consolidated debasing exposure and a cacophony of conflicting pro-social views.’”

Uh huh.

Read the full piece.

h/t to The First Street Journal.

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