Wealthy really are different, and not in a nice way: study

mentalfloss

Prickly Curmudgeon Smiter
Jun 28, 2010
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Wealthy really are different, and not in a nice way: study

Turns out, the rich really are different. But not necessarily in he ways we assume.

Though economically privileged, people from upper-class backgrounds consistently display deficits in empathy, social engagement, generosity and sensitivity compared to those from the lower classes. The differences in behaviour are so marked that even unschooled observers are able to detect a person's socioeconomic background based on 60 seconds of interaction.

The findings, published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, have researchers concluding that wealth comes at considerable personal cost - and that being poor isn't without its rewards.

"There's this sense among people that all problems reside in the lower classes," says report co-author Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley. "While some of that is true - they are more prone to diseases of every kind, and suffer health problems because of the difficulties in their lives - the research also points to all these wonderful strengths: greater empathy, greater altruism, greater sensitivity to others and greater attunement to the social world."

In one experiment, for example, observers were able to accurately judge education and income levels solely from watching a one-minute videotaped interaction between two strangers.

Cues to privilege included checking a cellphone during the conversation, doodling and avoiding eye-contact, while lower-class individuals - whom Keltner notes "turn to social connections to survive" - were prone to headnodding, laughter and overall attentiveness.

The report draws from years of class studies using participants of diverse ages, incomes, educations and upbringings. The findings on empathy, altruism and compassion are considered robust, having been replicated by nearly a dozen studies.

The tendency for the rich to hoard their resources was of particular interest to researchers, who conclude that "the idea of noblesse oblige or trickle-down economics ... is bull" because the upper classes aren't reliably giving back.

Statistics Canada reports that while wealthier families donate more money to charity in absolute terms, those earning less money donate a higher percentage of their income.

In 2007, donors with annual household incomes of less than $20,000 gave an average 1.6 per cent of their pre-tax earnings to charity, compared to just 0.5 per cent for donors with household incomes topping $100,000.

Lindsey Vodarek, communications manager for Imagine Canada, an advocacy group working on behalf of charities, says "this pattern has remained consistent over the last decade."

According to the Current Directions study, the divide is rooted in fundamental differences in thinking between the haves and have-nots.

While lower-class upbringings encourage people to lean on others, ask for help when needed, and to offer help in return, Keltner says those raised in upper-class backgrounds are imbued with greater permission to "focus on the self" and consider their opportunities to have been earned.

Keltner observes that such notions of entitlement and "old Protestant work ethic" don't lend themselves to offering hand-outs.

"If we're serious about reducing inequality - which I think is one of the most important problems facing the western world today - we can't just rely on the instinctual generosity of people who are wealthy. Because we're not finding it," says Keltner, author of Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life.

Of course, not all rich people are self-centred and greedy, and poorer families aren't universally benevolent and sensitive.

But the broad-strokes message is clear that socioeconomic background continues to have significant effects on culture, despite popular sentiments to the contrary.

"People think class is disappearing, and that it's something only crazy monarchs from European history cared about," says Keltner.

"But don't think for a minute that we live in a class-free society."
 

JLM

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 27, 2008
75,301
547
113
Vernon, B.C.
Wealthy really are different, and not in a nice way: study

Turns out, the rich really are different. But not necessarily in he ways we assume.

Though economically privileged, people from upper-class backgrounds consistently display deficits in empathy, social engagement, generosity and sensitivity compared to those from the lower classes. The differences in behaviour are so marked that even unschooled observers are able to detect a person's socioeconomic background based on 60 seconds of interaction.

The findings, published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, have researchers concluding that wealth comes at considerable personal cost - and that being poor isn't without its rewards.

"There's this sense among people that all problems reside in the lower classes," says report co-author Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California-Berkeley. "While some of that is true - they are more prone to diseases of every kind, and suffer health problems because of the difficulties in their lives - the research also points to all these wonderful strengths: greater empathy, greater altruism, greater sensitivity to others and greater attunement to the social world."

In one experiment, for example, observers were able to accurately judge education and income levels solely from watching a one-minute videotaped interaction between two strangers.

Cues to privilege included checking a cellphone during the conversation, doodling and avoiding eye-contact, while lower-class individuals - whom Keltner notes "turn to social connections to survive" - were prone to headnodding, laughter and overall attentiveness.

The report draws from years of class studies using participants of diverse ages, incomes, educations and upbringings. The findings on empathy, altruism and compassion are considered robust, having been replicated by nearly a dozen studies.

The tendency for the rich to hoard their resources was of particular interest to researchers, who conclude that "the idea of noblesse oblige or trickle-down economics ... is bull" because the upper classes aren't reliably giving back.

Statistics Canada reports that while wealthier families donate more money to charity in absolute terms, those earning less money donate a higher percentage of their income.

In 2007, donors with annual household incomes of less than $20,000 gave an average 1.6 per cent of their pre-tax earnings to charity, compared to just 0.5 per cent for donors with household incomes topping $100,000.

Lindsey Vodarek, communications manager for Imagine Canada, an advocacy group working on behalf of charities, says "this pattern has remained consistent over the last decade."

According to the Current Directions study, the divide is rooted in fundamental differences in thinking between the haves and have-nots.

While lower-class upbringings encourage people to lean on others, ask for help when needed, and to offer help in return, Keltner says those raised in upper-class backgrounds are imbued with greater permission to "focus on the self" and consider their opportunities to have been earned.

Keltner observes that such notions of entitlement and "old Protestant work ethic" don't lend themselves to offering hand-outs.

"If we're serious about reducing inequality - which I think is one of the most important problems facing the western world today - we can't just rely on the instinctual generosity of people who are wealthy. Because we're not finding it," says Keltner, author of Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life.

Of course, not all rich people are self-centred and greedy, and poorer families aren't universally benevolent and sensitive.

But the broad-strokes message is clear that socioeconomic background continues to have significant effects on culture, despite popular sentiments to the contrary.

"People think class is disappearing, and that it's something only crazy monarchs from European history cared about," says Keltner.

"But don't think for a minute that we live in a class-free society."


A lot of truth in what you say, there's many reasons why some are rich and some are poor.
 

Bar Sinister

Executive Branch Member
Jan 17, 2010
8,252
19
38
Edmonton
Unfortunately, as history shows us, the wealthy and privileged are very unlikely to change. To quote Tommy Douglas, who I believe was quoting someone else "No one is so resentful as a man who has ridden on your shoulders all of his life and you make him get off and walk." There are, of course, exceptions to the rule - people like F. D. Roosevelt who was regarded by many as a traitor to his class for actually caring about the average wage earner and trying to make life better for him; but far too many pay lip service to sharing their wealth while holding on to as much of it as they can.
 

CDNBear

Custom Troll
Sep 24, 2006
43,839
207
63
Ontario
How am I supposed to know if you did or not? From what I hear, most ex-Canadian military got screwed over. Kinda makes you want to go down to recruiting stations and volunteer to help find new converts?
Converts?
 

Omicron

Privy Council
Jul 28, 2010
1,694
3
38
Vancouver
Wealthy really are different, and not in a nice way: study
[...]
Though economically privileged, people from upper-class backgrounds consistently display deficits in empathy, social engagement, generosity and sensitivity compared to those from the lower classes. The differences in behaviour are so marked that even unschooled observers are able to detect a person's socioeconomic background based on 60 seconds of interaction.

This was first noted in print by Thomas De Quincey in his 1822 book, "Confessions of an English Opium Eater".

He would take opium and sometimes hang out at the opera. Other times he'd get stoned and get lost wandering the meandering streets of old London, to find himself hanging out with the poor people.

His observation was that poor people were more "philosophical" than rich people. Poor people would ponder the effects on their lives of changes to the price of onions and butter, whereas rich would just bitch.

The findings, published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science, have researchers concluding that wealth comes at considerable personal cost - and that being poor isn't without its rewards.
A "considerable personal cost" if you mean not having any friends, but if you've never had one you don't know what you're missing, so the richies are not going to be feeling much pain about it.

I think there's two types:

1) Psychopathic pigs achieving a special sense of orgasm when feeling like they have total control and subjugation over others... the type feeling a rush when giving an order that someone else must say "yes boss" to. I think they're the one's who smirk out of a corner of their mouths when doing bossiness.

2) Those born into it (probably children of type 1)

In their case, I think they're just scared and don't know what they'd do without the support of their rich society, so they act up with snootery, as if people are supposed to fear them.

The tendency for the rich to hoard their resources was of particular interest to researchers, who conclude that "the idea of noblesse oblige or trickle-down economics ... is bull" because the upper classes aren't reliably giving back.
Okay, this thread has grabbed me, which means I'm going to telegraph over the internet to you the tunes I am listening to while typing, to be fair, because I might rant, which means it might help in your evaluation of understanding co-factors.

http://tunes.digitalock.com/fromsmallthingsonedaybigthingscome.mp3

So anyway, on one hand we have Lucifer/Satan getting Reagan to deregulated things on the excuse of of trickle-down, which only tricked down to China and the money makers didn't even spend their money building walled defenses in American, rather, they found a cushy little south-American nation happy to have the money if they would just cook his food, dust, and tend the yards while he aged away. One of the leaders of the World Bank retired in Mexico that way in the early 80's, and I met him, and it bugs me how every time he looked at me his head would duck and he'd change the subject. It was like that dealing with the General of the reserve airforce base in Helena MT. WHY?!?

Anyway... next tune is ... I just went outside and prayed for the dumbest angel to be mine.

http://tunes.digitalock.com/raggletagglegypsio_dancemix.mp3

They can't all be the same intelligence, else Lucifer as the smartest Angel could not have rebelled. In the Old Testament in order to recruit brain-dumb angles etc. a little secret could not be stated with only Mormons being the ones to know, so drop it.

Pre-Hinkley Mormons know that God is the top of the smartest so far, and it goes up forever, such the He Himself might be learning things up, as we can learn under, if we can be in a way for it to be worth keeping our consciousnesses alive after the body dies.

http://tunes.digitalock.com/union_sundown.mp3

First you start hiring each other to do work, and you eat your own food.

You build up Eiffel Tower spines with homes hanging off branches enabled by your top-class engineering.

And you leave all the land around with no houses built on it anymore free for farming, with north American Defense being the strongest in the world surrounding the continent while climate change creates a situation of war-like extermination of everyone else, and your moral problem being how you were able to feed yourself as a continent so well that Armageddon didn't want to mention you in the prophesies.

http://tunes.digitalock.com/sixdaysontheroad.mp3

Seriously dudes... just keep North America (and South America... they will cooperate on this one if the ****ing-globe-economy-destroying a-holes from NY will make a game out of being allowed to do all the coke and *****s they want if the regulations don't stop them, to the extent there were a few who whined about not being regulated but shut up after they heard the gov was going to bail out their dysfunctional handling of the economy).

Aww... government is so oppressive and we'll work so much better as technical caveman, when I bet this dorkhole doesn't even know that north Americans plains indians practiced cop-force when they had cross-tribal festivals where they paid their tough guys on horse to be cops to keep things in order while they the festival happened.

Bet you never heard that reported before.
 

Retired_Can_Soldier

The End of the Dog is Coming!
Mar 19, 2006
11,285
480
83
59
Alberta
How am I supposed to know if you did or not? From what I hear, most ex-Canadian military got screwed over. Kinda makes you want to go down to recruiting stations and volunteer to help find new converts?

There is nothing wrong with the military. It's the out of touch civvies. I was never happier than I was in the military, great people, great friends you could count on, you got to blow sh*t up. Now if you want to talk about bureaucrats then that's a different animal all together, but service to country doesn't stop (nor should it) because some idiot politician can't differentiate between funding a the Gay Pride Parade and giving soldiers the equipment they need to do their job.

We all get screwed everyday by our government. Buy a 24 of Molson Canadian in Ontario and your looking at around $42, buy a 30 pack of the same beer in the US and it's $18 bucks. I could go on and on, but I won't, I think you get the idea.

By the way, for those poised to jump on the gay pride thing, give it a rest, it was an example.
 

SLM

The Velvet Hammer
Mar 5, 2011
29,151
3
36
London, Ontario
There is nothing wrong with the military. It's the out of touch civvies. I was never happier than I was in the military, great people, great friends you could count on, you got to blow sh*t up. Now if you want to talk about bureaucrats then that's a different animal all together, but service to country doesn't stop (nor should it) because some idiot politician can't differentiate between funding a the Gay Pride Parade and giving soldiers the equipment they need to do their job.

We all get screwed everyday by our government. Buy a 24 of Molson Canadian in Ontario and your looking at around $42, buy a 30 pack of the same beer in the US and it's $18 bucks. I could go on and on, but I won't, I think you get the idea.

By the way, for those poised to jump on the gay pride thing, give it a rest, it was an example.

Let me preface this by saying I have no personal connection to the forces; I've never served nor has anyone with whom I've ever had a personal relationship with.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for any individual who serves in the Canadian Forces, past or present. Any person who is willing to put themselves in the line of fire on my behalf, both figuratively and quite literally, has earned my respect.

The lack of funding is, imho, a disgrace. I mean equipment and supplies sufficient to not only allow the job to get done, but also to reduce the number of body bags. As with most things, it's always the guy on the bottom that gets the short end of the stick. Problem here is that the guy on the bottom can end up paying with his life.

There is a huge difference between funding for military equipment and funding for Pride, as an example. And I am someone who strongly supports Pride btw. (I also strongly suspect anyone who does jump on the Pride example probably doesn't "get" Pride anyway but that's a different subject) As I've said before and will likely say again, politicians focus too much on re-election as opposed to simply making good, fair decisions which is why they cannot differentiate between the two. I'm sure they don't start out that way, at least I hope they don't, but it sure seems like most of them do end up that way.

Just two cents, from one of the civvies.
 

Cliffy

Standing Member
Nov 19, 2008
44,850
192
63
Nakusp, BC
There is nothing wrong with the military. It's the out of touch civvies. I was never happier than I was in the military, great people, great friends you could count on, you got to blow sh*t up. Now if you want to talk about bureaucrats then that's a different animal all together, but service to country doesn't stop (nor should it) because some idiot politician can't differentiate between funding a the Gay Pride Parade and giving soldiers the equipment they need to do their job.
I wasn't referring to equipment. I hear that returning vets, particularly wounded, their families and the families of the dead service people are grossly neglected and care is underfunded. Although I also hear Big Brother Steve is trying to rectify that, I have not heard if it is just propaganda or if it is actually happening.
 

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
36,362
4,336
113
Vancouver Island
How am I supposed to know if you did or not? From what I hear, most ex-Canadian military got screwed over. Kinda makes you want to go down to recruiting stations and volunteer to help find new converts?

If you declare income you have been screwed by the government.
 

coldstream

on dbl secret probation
Oct 19, 2005
5,160
27
48
Chillliwack, BC
Not only do the wealthy show less empathy, social engagement, generosity and sensitivity.. but i'd note that things i observed way back in my college days.. when rich students almost invariably stuck to their own cliques rather than mixing with the rest of us.. is they seemed substantially less happy and satisfied with their lives. They often appeared to me to be very shallow, intellectually and emotionally.. far less adventurous and curious about the world.. i did not miss their company. :)
 

taxslave

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 25, 2008
36,362
4,336
113
Vancouver Island
There is nothing wrong with the military. It's the out of touch civvies. I was never happier than I was in the military, great people, great friends you could count on, you got to blow sh*t up. Now if you want to talk about bureaucrats then that's a different animal all together, but service to country doesn't stop (nor should it) because some idiot politician can't differentiate between funding a the Gay Pride Parade and giving soldiers the equipment they need to do their job.

We all get screwed everyday by our government. Buy a 24 of Molson Canadian in Ontario and your looking at around $42, buy a 30 pack of the same beer in the US and it's $18 bucks. I could go on and on, but I won't, I think you get the idea.

By the way, for those poised to jump on the gay pride thing, give it a rest, it was an example.

I spent 16 months as a civilian mechanic working for the military. Believe me Military Intelligence is an oxymoron. Many of them try very hard but since the officers that are in charge have no experience outside the military and many of them made officer (supervisor) not on merit but because they took the right courses and spoke french and sucking up to higher officers is how one gets promoted there is a huge amount of waste.
The base I worked on is a sort of recuperation place so there is a lot of people with PTSD and physical problems that are just trying to make their 20 to get the pension but the doctors there are clueless about treatment and just push bad pills.
There is a lack of money for new equipment or even repairing the antiques but money to buy a BBQ and lawn furniture for the shops. Go figure.

Not only do the wealthy show less empathy, social engagement, generosity and sensitivity.. but i'd note that things i observed way back in my college days.. when rich students almost invariably stuck to their own cliques rather than mixing with the rest of us.. is they seemed substantially less happy and satisfied with their lives. They often appeared to me to be very shallow, intellectually and emotionally.. far less adventurous and curious about the world.. i did not miss their company. :)

Did you happen to notice though that they had the new cars and cool toys. ANd got to do the fun stuff like go to the city for concerts or off to the mountain for ski weekends while the rest of us drove junk and worked weekends.
 

JLM

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 27, 2008
75,301
547
113
Vernon, B.C.
Let me preface this by saying I have no personal connection to the forces; I've never served nor has anyone with whom I've ever had a personal relationship with.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for any individual who serves in the Canadian Forces, past or present. Any person who is willing to put themselves in the line of fire on my behalf, both figuratively and quite literally, has earned my respect.

The lack of funding is, imho, a disgrace. I mean equipment and supplies sufficient to not only allow the job to get done, but also to reduce the number of body bags. As with most things, it's always the guy on the bottom that gets the short end of the stick. Problem here is that the guy on the bottom can end up paying with his life.

There is a huge difference between funding for military equipment and funding for Pride, as an example. And I am someone who strongly supports Pride btw. (I also strongly suspect anyone who does jump on the Pride example probably doesn't "get" Pride anyway but that's a different subject) As I've said before and will likely say again, politicians focus too much on re-election as opposed to simply making good, fair decisions which is why they cannot differentiate between the two. I'm sure they don't start out that way, at least I hope they don't, but it sure seems like most of them do end up that way.

Just two cents, from one of the civvies.

Your "two cents" is worth $million as far as the military is concerned. Hiding from war is simply unrealistic (although I have to admit when it comes to facing physical danger I'm a chicken) The military can also be employed for many domestic situations without there ever having to be a war. Our turn for a Katrina or the likes of Haiti or Japan is probably very close at hand (if the Slave Lake fire isn't bad enough).

If you declare income you have been screwed by the government.

And if you don't declare it you are going to get REALLY screwed by the Government.
 

SLM

The Velvet Hammer
Mar 5, 2011
29,151
3
36
London, Ontario
The military can also be employed for many domestic situations without there ever having to be a war. Our turn for a Katrina or the likes of Haiti or Japan is probably very close at hand (if the Slave Lake fire isn't bad enough).

A very good point and I one that I was remiss in not mentioning. Thanks.