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<h1 class="instapaper_title">
<font size="6">The price of wealth
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18 April 2012
by
<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/search?rbauthors=Michael+Bond"><b>Michael Bond</b></a>
</li><li>Magazine issue <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/issue/2861">2861</a>. <a href="http://subscribe.newscientist.com/bundles.aspx"><b>Subscribe and save</b></a></li></ul>
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<p><i>Psychologists now have evidence that money breeds greed and kills empathy. Knowing how could help solve social ills</i></p>
<p class="infuse"><b>Editorial:</b> "<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428612.500-rich-suffer-as-well-as-the-poor-in-unequal-society.html">Rich suffer as well as the poor in unequal society</a>"</p>
<p class="infuse">THE idea that money changes people for the worse is deeply ingrained in western culture. From <i>A Christmas Carol</i>, with its archetypal miser Scrooge, to <i>Wall Street</i>
with its ruthless anti-hero Gordon Gekko, countless stories have
featured individuals who forsake compassion as they amass their
fortunes. More recently, the press has taken to vilifying bankers for
awarding themselves huge bonuses while taking excessive risks with
investments.</p>
<p class="infuse">But what is the truth behind the
clichés? Do riches really breed selfishness and greed at the expense of
empathy and compassion? If so, why? Although researchers have explored
many of the ramifications of class and wealth since the birth of social
science in the late 19th century, only recently have they started to
look in detail at the way money shapes our ability to relate to other
people. The results are surprising, offering a picture of the impact of
wealth on our psychology that goes far beyond the usual stereotypes.
Understand these effects, and you get a better handle on the other
inequalities marking the vast gulf in health and well-being that
separates the rich and poor. It might even help explain our diverse
reactions to the current economic crisis.</p>
<p class="infuse"><a href="http://psychology.berkeley.edu/faculty/profiles/dkeltner.html" target="nsarticle">Dacher Keltner</a>
at the University of California, Berkeley, has pioneered much of the
recent work. He first started to contemplate the link between wealth and
empathy after being struck by what he calls "the profound self-interest
and social disconnect" shown by Wall Street bankers, while at the same
time recalling the generosity of his neighbours growing up in a poor
area. Someone going through tough times, he reasoned, needs the help of
others to see them through and so becomes more sensitive to the feelings
of those around them. For example, if you have less income you may have
to rely on friends and neighbours for childcare or travel, and as a
result will develop more effective social skills. "If you don't have
resources and education, you adapt to the environment - which is more
threatening - by turning to other people," says Keltner. "You just have
to lean on people." Those with more money, in contrast, can afford to
pay less attention to others, which could explain why your well-paid
boss is so unsympathetic.</p>
<p class="infuse">From these musings, Keltner and <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/mwkraus/" target="nsarticle">Michael Kraus</a>
at the University of California, San Francisco, designed a series of
experiments to test whether people from different social backgrounds
really do interact differently. In one of their earliest studies, they
divided about 100 volunteers into pairs, and then filmed each pair
meeting and getting acquainted for 5 minutes. To make sure that their
own expectations couldn't sway their interpretation of the behaviour,
Keltner and Kraus asked two independent observers to view the resulting
videos and rate each participant's actions during the exchange, by
counting how often they showed signs of interest such as nodding,
laughter and eye contact, compared with more detached behaviours such as
doodling.</p>
<p class="infuse">In line with Keltner's theory, the
poorer subjects were more likely to use warmer and more expressive body
language and gestures that signal engagement, while the richer
participants were more stand-offish (<a href="http://www.psychologicalscience.org/journals/ps/20_1_inpress/kraus.pdf" target="nsarticle"><i>Psychological Science</i>, vol 20, p 99</a>).
"Those from the wealthiest families would go directly to their
cellphones to check the time, or they would fiddle with their backpack
to make sure it was in order," says Kraus.</p>
<p class="infuse">The team suspected that these
different styles of interaction might have reflected the participants'
ability to judge another person's feelings. To find out if wealth can
influence empathy, the researchers first asked 200 university employees,
with jobs ranging from administrative support to managerial positions,
to rate the emotions expressed in 20 photographs of human faces - a
standard test of emotional intelligence. As predicted, those with the
more prestigious jobs were consistently worse at the task.</p>
<p class="infuse">In another experiment, the team
divided a group of students into pairs and asked them to act out mock
interviews - one student as the potential employer, one as the would-be
employee. Afterwards, they were asked to rate their feelings, such as
excitement, hope or worry, using a 10-point scale. They also had to
estimate the scores of their partners. Once again, the students from
poorer backgrounds were better at guessing their partner's feelings than
those from wealthier backgrounds (<a href="http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Kraus%20C%C3%B4t%C3%A9%20Keltner%20PS%20in%20press.pdf" target="nsarticle"><i>Psychological Science</i>, vol 21, p 1716</a>).</p>
<p class="infuse">Importantly, Keltner and Kraus have
found that these differences were fluid, changing with the participant's
perception of their position within a group. When asked to imagine a
conversation with someone they deemed to be higher up the social ladder,
the wealthier participants became immediately better at reading
emotions. The team concluded that the observed effects are probably
automatic reactions that lead us to become more vigilant and mindful of
others when we feel subordinate.</p>
<p class="infuse">Keen to investigate the way in which
wealth might influence other behaviours, the team turned to an
experiment designed to test altruism, in which each participant has to
decide how to divide a reward with an anonymous partner who is
supposedly sitting in another room. Despite being poorer, people from
less-privileged backgrounds tended to give more than those higher on the
social ladder. Similar results emerged from an online survey and game (<a href="http://bit.ly/A5vV06" target="nsarticle"><i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</i>, vol 99, p 771</a>).</p>
<p class="infuse">This selfish tendency on the part of
the better-off seems to translate to all kinds of situations, with
laboratory and real-world experiments revealing many instances in which
wealthier people are more likely to behave unethically than those from
poorer backgrounds. For instance, Keltner's latest study has found that
richer people are more likely to commit an offence while driving, eat
sweets that are intended for children, or cheat to increase their
chances of winning a prize (<a href="http://redaccion.nexos.com.mx/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/1118373109.full_.pdf" target="nsarticle"><i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</i>, vol 109, p 4086</a>).</p>
<p class="infuse">Taken together, the results provide
some preliminary support for Keltner's theory. However, it may be best
to reserve judgement until someone tests the apparent behavioural
differences in more true-to-life settings, says <a href="http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/lcgallo/" target="nsarticle">Linda Gallo</a>
at San Diego State University, California. She points out that many of
the experiments have been conducted in university labs - and people
might not be as empathic as Keltner's studies suggest if tested "in
situ" in tougher, deprived areas. It is also possible that the choice of
participants, who were mostly students, doesn't reflect the rest of the
population. If so, they wouldn't be the first experiments to have been
skewed by a relatively narrow sample; psychologists are becoming
increasingly concerned about studies that rely on educated subjects in
western, industrialised countries to draw conclusions about humanity <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827862.300-how-weird-are-you-oddball-minds-of-the-western-world.html">(<i>New Scientist</i>, 13 November 2010, p 42)</a><img src="http://www.newscientist.com/img/icon/artx_video.gif" alt="Movie Camera" title="Contains video content" class="artxicon">.</p>
<p class="infuse">Yet <a href="http://www-psych.stanford.edu/%7Ehmarkus/" target="nsarticle">Hazel Rose Markus</a>
at Stanford University in California, who studies the effects of
culture on behaviour, has also found that social and financial success
can make people less caring. She suggests that the differences may arise
from the sheer range of opportunities afforded by wealth - the rich
spend more time considering how to spend their fortune than worrying
about the needs of others, she thinks (<a href="http://spp.sagepub.com/content/2/1/33.abstract" target="nsarticle"><i>Social Psychological and Personality Science</i>, vol 2, p 33</a>).
"The conditions of life of those in the professional middle class focus
their attention on themselves and their own needs, interests and
choices, which makes them less caring," she says.</p>
<p class="infuse">Markus suspects that psychological
differences may help to explain some of the other inequalities between
the rich and poor. Consider a few districts in London; the average male
life expectancy is 88 years in one particularly well-heeled district in
the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, as compared with 71 in one of the
poorest areas, Tottenham Green in the north of the city.</p>
<p class="infuse">Part of the explanation for this is
straightforward: money can buy a better diet, a gym membership and
better healthcare. Furthermore, wealthier people are more likely to have
a better education, which leads to less physically stressful and more
rewarding jobs.</p>
<p class="infuse">Poorer people have less of all of
this, and they also have the stress of knowing they are low down in the
pecking order. There is now much evidence that this tension compounds
the impact of a less comfortable lifestyle. For instance, the <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025535.700-rich-and-poor--the-unequal-struggle.html">extensive Whitehall studies</a>,
which examined the health of British civil servants over decades, found
a very clear link between illness and job grade. Those lower down the
hierarchy were more likely to have cardiovascular and respiratory
disease and to die younger than those in more senior positions, even
after other social and economic factors had been taken into account.</p>
<p class="infuse">Richard Wilkinson, who studies the
social determinants of health at the University of Nottingham, UK, has
described the distress caused by social inequality as equivalent "to
more rapid ageing", because it "compromises the immune and
cardiovascular systems and increases our vulnerability to so many
diseases".</p>
<h3 class="crosshead">Emotional double hit</h3>
<p class="infuse">Where do the recent findings come into
this? Social interaction is meant to be vital to mental and physical
well-being, so you might expect the closer social ties in poorer
communities to mitigate these stresses. Yet the increased empathy may in
fact amplify the burden, by making people more acutely aware of their
lowly position on the economic ladder. "My hunch is that the increased
empathy of the working class does not buffer them from stress but rather
adds to the stress," says Markus.</p>
<p class="infuse">Her intuition finds some support in
one of Kraus's most recent series of experiments. He placed pairs of
participants in slightly tense social situations, in which they were
encouraged to create amusing nicknames for one another. Rating their
emotions before and after the exchange, those from poorer backgrounds
tended to show a greater dip in their mood - suggesting they are more
sensitive to perceived social slights (<a href="http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/06/08/0146167211410987.abstract" target="nsarticle"><i>Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin</i>, vol 37, p 1376</a>). "This is one of the negative consequences of being empathic in a context that is profoundly unfair," says Kraus.</p>
<p class="infuse">It adds up to a double whammy of
disadvantage: not only do the worse off face poorer resources and
opportunities; they are also more attuned to the injustice of their
situation, which may contribute to higher levels of anxiety,
hopelessness and depression - and, as a result, ill health. Gallo agrees
that "a low sense of control and self-esteem and high levels of
negative emotions such as depression and hostility help to explain why
individuals with low socio-economic status have worse physical health".</p>
<p class="infuse">The more self-centred mindset that
comes with riches might also have a profound effect on someone's
political opinions. When the team asked university students to explain
increasing economic inequality in American society, those from poorer
backgrounds thought it due to political influence or disparities in
educational opportunities. Those from wealthier backgrounds put it down
to hard work or talent (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19968415" target="nsarticle"><i>Journal of Personality and Social Psychology</i>, vol 97, p 992</a>).
In other words, poorer people, who must rely much more on others to get
by, are more aware of contextual or social factors that might
contribute to someone's circumstances, while those with the social and
financial resources to go it alone consider that life is what you make
it.</p>
<p class="infuse">On one level, this seems predictable:
wealthy people want to feel they deserve their high income, and no one
who is hard up wants to hold themselves responsible. But such
perceptions may have important consequences when it comes to politics.
Although the links between wealth, personality and political opinion are
difficult to disentangle, it's plausible that the reduced empathy that
comes with wealth and success may contribute to a more conservative,
right-wing position aimed at preserving the interests of the rich.</p>
<p class="infuse">Dishearteningly, Keltner's research
might also suggest that the money and prestige of high office could
degrade the altruistic tendencies of even the most well-meaning
politicians. "A government run by wealthy, educated people is going to
be interested in maintaining the current social order," says Kraus.
"[Its members] will not be interested in the welfare of everybody, but
in the welfare of themselves and their own goals."</p>
<p class="infuse">More generally, the work could be seen
to undermine "trickle-down economics": the notion that money made or
inherited by rich people will end up benefiting poorer individuals,
through the creation of new businesses that provide jobs for middle or
low-income earners, for example. This argument is often made in support
of tax cuts for the wealthy. Yet if the rich do create more jobs as a
result, Keltner's findings suggest they will be more concerned with
preserving their own interests, by awarding themselves hefty bonuses,
for instance, rather than creating a constructive working environment
with fair wages for all. "Our results say you cannot rely on the wealthy
to give back, to fix all the problems in society," Keltner says. "It is
improbable, psychologically."</p>
<p class="infuse">Fortunately, not everyone seems to be corrupted by the trappings of success - as many instances of generous philanthropy attest <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128310.400-good-leaders-dont-have-to-be-bad-people.html">(<i>New Scientist</i>, 24 September 2011, p 36)</a>.
And although Kraus and Keltner's experiments may seem to offer a
pessimistic view for those hoping to achieve greater social equality,
they do at least suggest that the tendencies aren't set in stone, and
that under the right circumstances, the well-off can be encouraged to
become more empathic.</p>
<p class="infuse">"If you can make them aware of those
things, you can shift their self-interest," says Kraus. Future research
will no doubt offer some suggestions for the best approach - although it
will probably take more than psychological trickery to open the eyes of
many dyed-in-the-wool politicians.</p>
<p><i><b>Michael Bond</b> is a <i>New Scientist</i> consultant in London</i></p>
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