Class Acts

The number of Americans living below the official poverty line is at its highest level in decades. On the other hand, our political leaders are drawn from those Americans who are highest in socioeconomic status. The average wealth of members of Congress is $13.2 million in the Senate and $5.9 million in the House. Eleven percent of Congress are in the top 1% of the income distribution. These Congresspeople are considering taking serious steps to dismantle the social safety net that is critical to the survival of an increasingly large number of poor Americans. What can social psychology tell us about differences in the attitudes of rich and poor Americans toward personal responsibility, and about differences in their willingness to help those in need or to deliberately hurt other people?

A recent series of experiments by social psychologists led by Dacher Keltner at the University of California at Berkeley have studied the psychology of social class. First, a word on how social class was measured. In some studies, it was measured objectively by asking participants to state their own (or their parents') income and educational attainment. Subjective social class was measured by asking participants to place an “X” on one of ten rungs of a ladder representing their status compared to others. Finally, in some studies, social class was manipulated by having participants to write an essay comparing their own life to that of either a rich or a poor American. Comparing yourself to the poor makes you feel richer, while comparing yourself to the rich makes you feel poorer. These different approaches produced generally consistent results.

Explanations of human behavior can be divided into personal causes (some characteristic of the behaving individual) or situational causes (some aspect of the social environment). How do the rich and the poor explain economic inequality? The Berkeley group hypothesized that since poor people have fewer resources, they exert less personal control over their own outcomes, and they see inequality as more a product of situational forces than the rich. Keltner and his colleagues called their participants' attention to inequality in this country by presenting statistical data. Participants were then asked to rate the importance of twelve explanations of inequality. Some of them were personal (talent, hard work) while others were situational (inheritance, discrimination). These studies also included a measure of personal control over one's own life.

As expected, upper class participants gave more personal explanations for wealth and poverty, and the relationship between social class and social explanation was mediated by feelings of personal control over one's own life. (See my earlier post on I. Q. and prejudice for an explanation of how mediational hypotheses are tested.) Subsequent studies showed that these tendencies to explain behavior as personally or situationally caused apply to other outcomes in addition to economic inequality. If members of economic and political elites believe they have earned their favorable position, and that poor people fail because they lack positive traits, will they be more willing to eliminate social programs that to help the poor?

Do upper and lower classes differ in helpfulness? The Berkeley group proposed that, because the poor depend more on other members of their community for help in times of crisis, they would be more sensitive to the needs of others, more compassionate, and more helpful. An alternative possibility is that because the poor have less, they will be more reluctant to give it away and will be less helpful. In one of their studies (called the “dictator game”), participants were given ten points (later to be exchanged for money) and allowed to split them however they chose between themselves and an anonymous partner. Lower class participants were more generous to their partners. In another study, people were asked how much of one's income a person ought to donate to charity. In this study, social class was both measured objectively and manipulated (by having them compare themselves to the rich or the poor). The results are shown in this chart.

The lines labeled lower and upper class rank refer to the manipulations of thinking about the rich or the poor respectively. High and low social class refer to their objective status (family income and education). Using both measures, the poor were more generous. This finding corresponds to real world studies which consistently show that poor people donate a higher percentage of their income to charity than rich people.

One study tested the hypothesis that the helpfulness of the poor is mediated by compassion. Compassion was manipulated by showing a short film about child poverty or a neutral film. Participants were later given an opportunity to help a fellow student in distress. When shown the neutral film, lower class participants were more helpful than upper class participants. When the compassion-inducing film was shown, there was no difference. The rich were capable of being helpful when reminded of the need to be compassionate. However, the poor appeared to be spontaneously helpful.

Might the upper class's lack of helpfulness also mean that they are more likely to behave unethically for selfish reasons? The Berkeley group did seven studies of social class differences in unethical behavior. When most Americans think about criminal behavior, they think of lower class street criminals whose behavior is heavily publicized by the media. However, the researchers expected the rich to endorse greed as a legitimate motive and behave more unethically than the poor. Two of the studies were observations of drivers. Wealth was measured by the monetary value of their car. Drivers of expensive cars were more likely to cut off other drivers at a four-way stop and to fail to yield the right of way to pedestrians—both illegal under California law.

In other studies, upper class participants took more candy which, if they hadn't taken it, would have been given to children; cheated more on a laboratory task in order to win a monetary prize; and reported greater willingness to lie, steal and behave unethically in hypothetical scenarios. Finally, the authors demonstrated that the unethical behavior of the rich was mediated by greed. Greed was manipulated by asking some participants to list three reasons why greed might be a good thing. Others completed a different list. They then filled out a measure of willingness to endorse unethical behaviors on the job, such as borrowing money from the cash register overnight. When greed was primed, lower class participants endorsed as much unethical behavior as wealthier participants. Without the greed prime, the usual social class differences were obtained.

These studies are impressive both in number and consistency. Obviously, none of these behaviors rise to the level of the recent financial crimes that have cost middle class Americans billions of dollars. But at the very least, they suggest that mass media stereotypes of the rich and the poor need adjustment. In my last post, I reported studies showing that the decisions made by our political leaders correspond most closely to the preferences of the rich. When the wealthiest Americans decide the future of the country during a long recession, they seem almost certain to increase inequality--a problem that has already gotten far out of hand.