Rich people just care less

[ashling]

Rich People Just Care Less

A growing body of recent research shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power. This tuning out has been observed, for instance, with strangers in a mere five-minute get-acquainted session, where the more powerful person shows fewer signals of paying attention, like nodding or laughing. Higher-status people are also more likely to express disregard, through facial expressions, and are more likely to take over the conversation and interrupt or look past the other speaker.

...

A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain. In 2008, social psychologists from the University of Amsterdam and the University of California, Berkeley, studied pairs of strangers telling one another about difficulties they had been through, like a divorce or death of a loved one. The researchers found that the differential expressed itself in the playing down of suffering. The more powerful were less compassionate toward the hardships described by the less powerful

...

While Mr. Keltner’s research finds that the poor, compared with the wealthy, have keenly attuned interpersonal attention in all directions, in general, those with the most power in society seem to pay particularly little attention to those with the least power. To be sure, high-status people do attend to those of equal rank — but not as well as those low of status do.

This has profound implications for societal behavior and government policy. Tuning in to the needs and feelings of another person is a prerequisite to empathy, which in turn can lead to understanding, concern and, if the circumstances are right, compassionate action.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/rich-people-just-care-less/?_r=0


about the author of this opinion piece: Daniel Goleman, a psychologist, is the author of “Emotional Intelligence” and, most recently, “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence.”

[Mnemosyne]

1. KnR nt

[Gregorian]

2. Human nature takes effort to transcend.

I keep coming back to this phrase:

How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

It works both ways, too. I'm discovering that it means being brave because no one is really any better than anyone else.

[valerief]

3. And the sun comes up every day.

Another "so what else is new?" study. Why don't they study WHY the don't give a shit about the non- instead of studying the obvious?

But thanks, anyway, for the post.

[Donkees]

6. "Lack of Empathy"

"Lack of Empathy: The Most Telling Narcissistic Trait
Don't expect them to listen, validate, or support you."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201201/lack-empathy-the-most-telling-narcissistic-trait

[Igel]

10. It's relative and statistical.

There are a lot of non-wealthy who don't give a crap about others of equal status, and deride the very idea that the wealthy might have any problems.

Overall, this trait just builds hierarchy, which is a very primate trait.

[snagglepuss]

4. Odd coming across this post because I was thinking along similiar lines

when I read about Bill Clinton dismissing Bernie's anger. The kind of wealth the Clintons have confers a serenity, a blase attitude that recoils from anything that destroys this wealth-induced quaalude-like state. The little people and their concerns are just bothersome noise.

The other thing that struck me is related having recently read that minimizing the emotions of others is the hallmark of emotional manipulators. I mention this because deft manipulating skills are de rigeur for anyone who amasses great wealth.

The examples cited in your post are people who are deft manipulators, people who know how to maintain their social dominance.

[roguevalley]

5. This is all true. Jamie Dimond got a 35% raise. how is that for lack of empathy

[mhatrw]

7. Many couldn't care less. nt

[surrealAmerican]

8. I expect this is true of other social animals as well.

It comes with the territory - high status, or leadership, involves some attention to your pack, and some ignoring of their concerns. Subordinate members of the pack need to pay very careful attention to the needs and desires of of others.

One only leads as long as the subordinates follow, though.

[yuiyoshida]

9. Really...

Never a truer statement said, Rich People don't give a damn about people in this country or this country for that matter.

[Donkees]

11. "Age of entitlement--how wealth breeds narcissism"

"As a society becomes wealthier, it can get more narcissistic, less empathetic and unwilling to look after the vulnerable. A majority of Republicans in a recent poll said they thought the poor in America had it easy. Greater feelings of entitlement might also lead to a tax revolt by the upper classes. It is the logic of "I’ve earned it", "It’s mine", and, "Why should I have to use my hard-earned cash for those inferior scroungers, the poor?"

Wealth cultivates attitudes that are against redistribution and for privilege, Piff said:

The more severe inequality becomes, the more entitled people may feel and less likely to share resources they become. The wealthier [that] segments of society become then, the more vulnerable communities may be to selfish tendencies and the less charity the least among us can expect."

---edited to add:

"As inequality mounts and the policies entrenching it remain, as politicians are increasingly drawn from the top 10% or even 1%, we need to pay heed to this research.

The whole idea of "leaners" and "lifters" is the central teaching of the right wing ideologue, Ayn Rand, who penned books like The Virtue of Selfishness. It’s a self-serving crock. Rand found out the hard way. After a lifetime proselytising on behalf of the "producers" and denouncing anyone needing government assistance as "parasites," when Rand became old and sick, she discovered that even a bestselling author could not afford health care in the neoliberal US. She availed herself of Medicare and ended her life on what she had despised – social security. Maybe Joe Hockey will learn in old age that leaning comes to all of us."

This is an edited extract from Anne Manne's new book, The Life of I: the new culture of narcissism, published by Melbourne University Press.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/08/the-age-of-entitlement-how-wealth-breeds-narcissism

[Donkees]

12. "Money on the Mind"

[jmondine]

13. The very culture of the rich is based on a lie.

The lie is that a person's wealth increases their inherent human value. The lie in turn is driven by a basic fear of one's own common humanity.

The most frightening thing you can say to a typical person of wealth is, "You are a common, ordinary human being. Everyone can see this, and there's nothing you can do to hide it."