Is greed the driver of a booming stock
market or an explosive budget deficit?
Is greed the driver of the wealthy to get even more wealth than they would ever need?
Can greed ever be a good thing?
Frequently, various measures of the
performance of the world’s largest economy—the United States— make the news. I
see blurbs telling me of stunning multiyear highs for the S&P stock index,
incredibly low unemployment, and budget bursting deficits. And I wonder about
greed.
Is greed the major reason
why everyone seems to join the party and ignore the day when debt payments must
be paid?
Meanwhile, wise individuals assess their level
of greed balanced against their appetite for risk. And some consider the virtue
of generosity and their social obligations.
What
is Greed?
Greed is a
desire to get more and more of things regardless of personal needs. Greed may
be situational, but it may also be dispositional—a personality trait. Greed is
usually linked to goals of getting more food, money, and material things. The Cambridge
Dictionary lists related words like avarice, materialism, and rapaciousness.
Beyond the dictionary list, researchers (for
a summary, see Bruhn & Lowery, 2012) find that regardless of national
culture, people seek to satisfy five needs: security, shelter,
sustenance, sex, and self-expression. Values are related to perceptions of need.
In the United States, values include material comfort, wealth, competition,
and individualism.
Ambition is a benign term for socially
acceptable greed. Greed is ambition beyond the
norms of a culture. High levels of greed interfere with personal, corporate,
and national well being.
Greed is a biopsychosocial motivational
force that appears to be a part of human nature. It isn’t surprising to see
some tout the values of greed despite general religious teachings condemning
greed.
Greed:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
If I were a famous researcher, I think I
would like to write a piece for a major news outlet called Greed: The Good, the
Bad, and the Ugly because, I believe the answer to the question, “Is Greed
a Double-Edged Sword?” is yes (Zhu and others, 2019). On the one hand, people with high levels of greed aim for higher levels
of social status and the associated benefits, which includes a variety of
material goods.
The “good” of greed for an employer can be
the respect for those in authority who are in a position to control the
advancement of the greed-driven employee, not to mention the high job
performance. Greedy people want more and never seem to be satisfied—
these are the two elements of greed described by Seuntjens, Zeelenberg, van de
Ven, & Breugelmans (2019).
The “bad” of greed includes the lack of
performance when employees view their organisation as not distributing benefits
in a fair manner and the fostering of destructive competition. Greed is also linked to a
willingness to take bribes and break rules (e.g., Seuntjens et al., (2019).
Bruhn & Lowery (2012) identify the downside using terms like “envy, power
lust, exploitation, manipulation, deception, and a sense of entitlement”
(p.138).
I also note the work of Gray, Ward, and
Norton (2014) demonstrating a “paying it forward effect” for both greed and generosity. In their studies,
people pay forward equality and generosity, though they tend to be less
generous. But they tend to excess when paying forward greed and acts of
cruelty.
Managing
Greedy People and
Fair play is critical to prevent greed-linked
cheating. The findings from Zhu et al. (2019)
suggest government and organisational leaders ought to ensure a culturally fair
distribution of resources to benefit from the energies of greedy people.
Boundaries are needed at all levels of
society to establish acceptable norms for ambition.
Monitor acts of Paying it Forward. It’s important to reward positive acts of kindness and generosity. But it’s equally important to be quick to address the payback of greed and harm, which can quickly lead to harmful relationships and an unsafe culture (e.g., Gray et al., 2014).
Leaders’ public pronouncements of regret
may be helpful. Expressing regret about greedy
behaviour and unfairness appear to have some impact on strengthening norms about
fairness. Conversely, leaders who tout the virtues of greed can influence
violations of social boundaries (van der Schalk, Kuppens, Bruder, & Manstead,
2015).
Public exposure of deception is
important. National leaders, the press,
organisations, and individuals play an important role in exposing the tricks of
the greedy who use misrepresentation, lies, and deception to exploit others in
their pursuit of goods (Steinel & De Dreu, 2004). A free press and support
for whistleblowers are needed to curb measurable harm from the negative effects
of greed.
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See Creating Surveys to help measure attitudes, values, and behavior in organizations.
Evolution and Greedy Behavior
Research on the evolutionary basis for greed explores how behaviors that may be labeled as "greedy" in modern contexts could have conferred selective advantages in ancestral environments. One prominent idea is that a strong drive to acquire and retain resources—what we now call greed—could have improved individuals’ survival and reproductive success in unpredictable and resource-scarce settings. For instance, early humans who were more motivated to secure food, territory, or mates might have been more likely to pass on their genes, embedding a propensity for resource acquisition in our evolutionary history (Dawkins, 1976).
Evolutionary game theory also sheds light on this subject. Models such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma illustrate that strategies aimed at maximizing individual gain—strategies that resemble greed—can become stable solutions under certain conditions. However, these models simultaneously reveal the inherent trade-offs: while short-term benefits might be gained, excessive self-interest can undermine cooperative interactions that are essential for the long-term stability and success of a group (Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981).
Additionally, some scholars argue that what is labeled greed may actually be an overextension of a more general, adaptive propensity for opportunistic behavior. Processes like reciprocal altruism and reputation management likely co-evolved with these self-serving tendencies as mechanisms to mitigate the adverse effects of unchecked greed, balancing personal ambition with the maintenance of social cohesion (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2004).
Together, these perspectives suggest that greed may be seen as an evolutionary trade-off: while the desire for resource maximization can yield immediate benefits, it must be moderated by cooperative norms to ensure overall group success. Ongoing research continues to explore how these evolved instincts interact with cultural, economic, and environmental factors in contemporary society.
See the Dispositional Greed Scale as a measure of Greed.
Also see the related concept of Altruism and the work of Batson.
References
Axelrod, R., & Hamilton, W. D. (1981). The evolution of cooperation. Science, 211(4489),1390 1396.
Bruhn,
J. G., & Lowrey, J. (2012). The good and bad about greed: How the
manifestations of greed can be used to improve organizational and individual
behavior and performance. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and
Research, 64(2), 136–150. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029355
Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene. Oxford University Press.
Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2004). Social norms and human cooperation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), 185–190.
Gray,
K., Ward, A. F., & Norton, M. I. (2014). Paying it forward: Generalized
reciprocity and the limits of generosity. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 143(1), 247–254. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031047
Seuntjens,
T. G., Zeelenberg, M., van de Ven, N., & Breugelmans, S. M. (2015). Dispositional
greed. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(6), 917–933. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000031
Steinel,
W., & De Dreu, C. K. W. (2004). Social Motives and Strategic
Misrepresentation in Social Decision Making. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 86(3), 419–434.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.86.3.419
van
der Schalk, J., Kuppens, T., Bruder, M., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2015). The
social power of regret: The effect of social appraisal and anticipated emotions
on fair and unfair allocations in resource dilemmas. Journal of Experimental
Psychology: General, 144(1), 151–157.
https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000036.supp (Supplemental)
Zhu,
Y., Sun, X., Liu, S. & Xue, G. (2019). Is greed a double-edged sword? The
roles of the need for social status and perceived distributive justice in the
relationship between greed and job performance. Frontiers in Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02021
Updated 13 May 2025
Post Author
Geoffrey W. Sutton, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Evangel University, holds a master’s degree in counseling and a PhD in psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. His postdoctoral work encompassed education and supervision in forensic and neuropsychology. As a licensed psychologist, he conducted clinical and neuropsychological evaluations and provided psychotherapy for patients in various settings, including schools, hospitals, and private offices. During his tenure as a professor, Dr. Sutton taught courses on psychotherapy, assessment, and research. He has authored over one hundred publications, including books, book chapters, and articles in peer-reviewed psychology journals. His website is https://suttong.com
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