As part of our Rotman Short Talks series, hear from Professor Stéphane Côté about how social class affects our behaviour. Based on his research, he shows that those in upper economic classes are less inclined to help others, especially when they are made aware of social inequalities. He outlines that society would function better with only moderate levels of inequality — which raises a red flag about the risks of increasing inequality in many economies.
Stéphane Côté is Professor of Organizational Behaviour and Director of the PhD program at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He received his PhD in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan. He studies how employees can use emotional intelligence to improve their well-being and performance, and how social class and economic inequality relate to prosocial behavior in social and organizational settings. He serves on the editorial boards of the Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, and Personnel Psychology, and has served as Associate Editor of Emotion. He is a Fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He teaches The Socially Intelligent Manager in the MBA program and seminars on organizational behavior and research methods in the PhD program.