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.
