Does money make you mean?

[Shankapotomus]

It's amazing what a rigged game of Monopoly can reveal. In this entertaining but sobering talk, social psychologist Paul Piff shares his research into how people behave when they feel wealthy. (Hint: badly.) But while the problem of inequality is a complex and daunting challenge, there's good news too. (Filmed at TEDxMarin.)

[imthevicar]

1. Yep and...

selfish, entitled, greedy, Self centered.......

[tclambert]

3. But it used to be we thought those traits helped greedy individuals build their fortunes

Now we have experimental proof that wealth brings out those qualities, even in normal people chosen by the flip of a coin.

[DFW]

2. Easy to say, but a flawed stereotype

Last edited Sat Dec 21, 2013, 05:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Sure, I see lots of people, especially in Dallas, as well as here in Europe, who think lots of money somehow makes them a superior being of some sort. But I also know people, including at least one billionaire, who are so totally NOT full of themselves, if you didn't know how rich they were, you'd think they worked as a low-level employee at the neighborhood pharmacy.

I have friends in Dallas who are multimillionaires who give away huge sums of money to charities, educational causes, arts events that otherwise would never rise above the dreaming stage, etc etc etc. They have made sure their children get a chunk of inheritance but have the bulk of their estates designated for charities and progressive causes.

Just because we may not be loaded ourselves, doesn't mean everyone who got lucky thinks they were born entitled to it, or looks down on those of us who will never attain their level of wealth.

*edited for spelling

[tclambert]

4. The hopeful part of the video showed that if reminded of the values of cooperation

and community, with in one case a video only 45 second long, that the "rich" in their experiments would increase their giving behavior significantly.

[Ace Acme]

5. No stereotype is perfect.

Last edited Sat Dec 21, 2013, 04:04 PM - Edit history (1)

But studies show that drivers of high-priced cars are more discourteous to pedestrians than drivers of lower-priced cars are.

The fact that the occasional odd guy in a Maserati shows ordinary courtesy doesn't change the fact.

[DFW]

9. But that's exactly what I mean

Besides the fact that in Texas, the guy in overalls and driving a pickup is as likely to run you over because of what you look like as the driver of the Maserati, I'm not going to condemn the Maserati driver out of hand just in case he's the one out of 50 that gave Wendy Davis $50,000 for her campaign to knock the Republicans out of our governor's mansion. To condemn someone out of hand because of their net worth is reverse snobbery and not much different from condemning someone because his shoes didn't have a four figure price tag.

[Ace Acme]

15. OK, you know some nice rich people. I don't.

It's anecdotal evidence. We're talking about science here. My anecdotal evidence is that the rich people I know (including family members) are assholes, and that they weren't assholes before they got rich.

[DFW]

17. Sounds like you need some new acquaintances.

I'm talking about people here. And not all the rich people I know are assholes. Way back in my DC days, I met Bobby Kennedy and was friendly with his son, Bobby Jr (just as examples--there have been many rich people since). They were anything but assholes.

[passiveporcupine]

7. It wasn't a stereotype

As much as statistical evidence of the role money plays in social attitudes. Statistics are rarely 100%. Everything falls on a continuum...but statistically speaking, what this talk shows is that money/power/advantage/luck can and does affect social attitudes in a negative way.

[DFW]

10. Can and does, granted

But doesn't automatically. In TX, the few progressive statewide candidates we have get support from millionaires who side with us, and I refuse to condemn them out of hand just because their bank balances are similar to those of a lot of assholes.

[passiveporcupine]

11. Recognizing the problem

is not asking you to condemn anyone. Just be aware of the problem and help find ways to counter it. I've known very nice people with money too.

[DFW]

12. You can't be from Texas and not be aware of the problem

It's the same here in Germany. A friend of ours is a very highly paid business consultant (always votes SPD or Green, btw). His wife is a well-educated, very smart woman who is one of my wife's best friends. She is from a grungy working class town in the Ruhr area. She talks like it, and dresses like it, for no other reason than that she doesn't see why affluence should force her to change herself.

One day, she was looking for some new bedclothes in our little town outside Düsseldorf, and she was asking about some she liked. The saleswoman told her, "oh, no, those are too expensive for you." As the wife of a guy who earns a mid-six-figure salary (and pulls in a decent wage herself as a teacher of handicapped children), she was left speechless. But she is not the type to cause a scene, say what she was worth, and give a lecture. She just left the shop, and the saleswoman probably doesn't know to this day what an idiot she had been. The need of some people to be superior to others (whether they're "too poor to be good" or "too rich to be good," it's the same snobbery) apparently is not easily exorcized.

[passiveporcupine]

13. I'm not from Texas

but, you are right...people who work in high class establishments can be just as bigoted as their clientele.

[kenfrequed]

14. Uhm...

The study highlighted statistical behavior, not absolute stereotypes.

It is far better this behavior is recognized and attempts are made to understand it than to pretend it doesn't exist or dismiss it as "stereotyping."

[Ace Acme]

16. Right. To cite the tail of the bell curve as if it de-legitimized the bell curve is silly. nt

[DAngelo136]

6. None other than Adam Smith

observed this phenomenon, that's why he wrote "The Theory of The Moral Sentiments". You see, Adam Smith didn't see himself as an economist, not in the same sense we do today, but a moral philosopher. "Wealth Of Nations" would come along later as an explaination of of how some countries become wealthier than others. That's why the full title of the book is "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations". He was answering a question of HOW nations acquire wealth. "Moral Sentiments" is about WHY humans behave despite wealth.

[ailsagirl]

8. I think for many it makes them tightwads

So afraid someone or something will deprive them of their precious money

Is that happiness?