Americans would ditch love, betray friends and even risk their lives for a seven-figure payday, a new survey reveals.
Over 40% would walk out on their romantic partner in a heartbeat for a cool million, according to a poll of 2,000 people by Gamblizard, a website that tracks and shares online casino deals.
And plenty of Americans seem willing to risk their own skin, too.
Nearly half, 46%, said they’d step right into a real-life “Squid Game” — the Netflix hit where contestants face certain death — to pocket $33 million, just like the winner on the show.
Even more chilling, four in ten Americans said they would gladly bankrupt a stranger to secure $33 million for themselves. Another 46 percent said they might consider it, depending on whose finances were at risk.
Nearly 60% would ditch technology entirely and live off the grid, and forget Netflix and chill: 41% of Americans would completely swear off sex for that same million-dollar check, the survey found.
An alarming 15% admitted they’d frame a friend for a crime they didn’t commit to get their hands on that kind of cash.
But Americans do have priorities, with 10 percent saying they would reject the money if they couldn’t share it, while 21% value social media access more than a million bucks.
More than half would reject the cash if their parents controlled it, and 38% would hesitate if their enemy benefited too.
The findings “reveal more about human psychology than moral decay,” said Nina Mazar, behavioral scientist at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. “While some people might never compromise their values regardless of the sum, others have thresholds — and the data suggests that as incentives rise, more people admit they’d waver.”
But Carnegie Mellon University economics and psychology professor George Loewenstein thinks the issue runs deeper.
When money’s tight, people are more willing to stretch their morals to make ends meet, he said.
Some might laugh off these survey answers as just hypothetical fun, but Loewenstein warns the truth might be darker.
“Are these responses likely to reflect real behavior? They probably understate the actual fraction of people who would actually do these things if faced with the temptation,” said Loewenstein, who specializes in social and decision sciences.
Ben Bradley, a philosophy professor and ethics expert at Syracuse University is worried about the nation’s moral compass.
“People often think they would act a certain way when confronted with a scenario, but are wrong,” he said. “Framing a friend for murder is much more disturbing. A non-trivial number of people regard morality as a sucker’s game.”
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