Eric Mercadante

My research investigates how and why people act unethically in pursuit of indicators of social rank (e.g., wealth, power, status). I address this topic from the perspective of both the individuals seeking social rank and the observers who evaluate those individuals and their behaviors, from close others to society at large. I use a variety of methods, ranging from cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys and experiments to big-data approaches like natural language processing and analysis of large archival datasets.