According to Professor Wade at Occidental College, if you studied economics, you are likely to be a bad person.
Dr. Wade writes that if you have taken classes on Economics, you “are less likely to share, less generous to the needy, and more likely to cheat, lie, and steal.”
She largely bases her belief on a study from 2010. In the study, students were asked if they would like to contribute money to a liberal political group or a group that is pushing for lower tuition, possibly by asking for more subsidies from taxpayers.
Students with an understanding of economics were less inclined to donate to these groups than students with other majors. And for that reason, Dr. Wade has declared that they are “anti-social.”
But as the article points out,
The flaws in this assessment [are] blatant, however. The first and most obvious is that there were no conservative groups to donate to. To say that donations to liberal groups correlate with the goodness of people is patently ridiculous.
Second, it could very well be that people who understand Economics are more aware of the consequences of just giving money to political groups. Or perhaps they know more about the effectiveness of using money to solve a problem instead of having a plan to actually fix things.
These things do not run through Dr. Wade’s head as she is all too happy to declare that Economics majors are anti-social. Further, she says that Econ majors need to take ““balancing” classes, ones that present a different kind of economics.”
Here is the link to Professor Wade's piece [via J Alan, who notes the comments on her piece make good points as well.].