A psychology experiment in which people helped themselves to candy set aside for children won the 2026 Ig Nobel Prize in Economics at a ceremony in Zurich on September 3. The prize honored a 2012 paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that concluded higher social class predicts more unethical behavior. In the years since, independent teams that tried to repeat parts of that work have often come up empty.
The award went to Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton and Dacher Keltner. Improbable Research, which runs the Ig Nobels, cited the team for amassing evidence that upper-class people are more likely to take from a children's supply of candy and engage in other kinds of unethical behavior. Piff attended the ceremony to accept the prize.
