Rich People and Cooperation

[Michael]

Science Closes In On the Reason Rich People Are Jerks

A few weeks ago when I blogged about a social-psych study that found people have more empathy when they feel low in status, I wasn't aware how much work is being done in other fields on the rich-asshole problem in social science. Earlier this month, for example, the evolutionary theorist David Sloan Wilson reported a very similar finding. Wilson's student Dan O'Brien was researching cooperative behavior in a local primate species called the Binghamton, N.Y. high-school student. The higher a neighborhood's median income, O'Brien found, the less cooperative were its teen-agers.

It's always worth noting when researchers using different methods and theories get similar findings about people. My earlier post was about social psychologists who were trying to measure empathy. O'Brien used a technique from experimental economics: He had the kids play a game in which cooperation is better than betrayal, but only if your partner keeps faith. Reactions to these games vary a lot from culture to culture around the world. Amazingly, in Binghamton, N.Y., they vary in a similar way from neighborhood to neighborhood.

Source (http://bigthink.com/ideas/26594)

This shouldn't be too surprising - I've long figured this pattern out on my own from living in a downtown environment filled with ALL socio-economic groups. And one thing you notice quickly is that poor people always give to panhandlers and always give away cigarettes to everyone who asks them (because that's always the question from a panhandler if they see anyone smoking). Dudes in suits rarely ever give money to panhandlers.

(and yes, I've sat for hours watching specifically because I was interested - usually viewed from a comfortable chair on a patio drinking beer!)

Anyway, this does sound like an interesting topic of human psychology (or sociology!). :)

Btw, I don't think it is so much that 'rich people' are less cooperative, rather they just find that different types of cooperation are more or less useful and that these choices tend to be different than those of 'poor people'.

[Donkey]

Rich people are pretty cooperative when it comes to creating cartels to protect their money. :sneaky:

[drgoodtrips]

The article seems to place value on people's willingness to become cogs in a larger machine. That is, the 'nice'/'cooperative' people are the ones that will make cookies for the local bake sale whereas the 'rich' are less likely to do so (perhaps doing nothing, or perhaps just cutting a check and not bothering with the muffins). Further, the parallel study cited indicates that this is, apparently, a result of anyone being exposed to material wealth in an ownership capacity -- even a hypothetical one.

I wonder if this is a correlation versus causation issue. Perhaps people that are interested in seizing leadership positions or else standing away from the herd tend to be better at the tasks in life that lead to accumulation of wealth -- the politician versus the guy that goes door to door for the campaign, the guy who studies nights and works overtime at the office versus the guy who socializes at the water cooler, the guy who plays quarterback instead of blocking as a unit for the quarterback, etc.

I'd say that maybe these characteristics that distinguish the two types of people (megalomania/ambition/attention-seeking/perfectionist versus sociable/cooperative/content-with-less/part-of-the-herd) exist beforehand and tend to lead to different types of outcome.

Anecdotally, I'm not a particularly 'cooperative' person. The idea of participating in some kind of neighborhood bake sale would need to be accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol in order to be tolerable. I'm not a big office socializer and tend to be more interested in talking about ideas and concepts than going out to lunch with the gang every day. I live in a condo association and, for the most part, I think its activities are the province of people with too much time on their hands and too much interest in what color their neighbors paint their front doors. I prefer to be left alone and I don't really care what other people do. If offered the choice between a fun-run and donating 20 bucks to charity, I would opt for the latter.

But, all that was as true when I was working in retail after college for minimum wage as it is now that I'm doing a bit better. And, my tendency to give money away or to do favors for people is unaltered from that time period as well. I think I just have certain characteristics - I prefer to work and think on my own or in a leadership capacity rather than in a cooperative one. I view the ideal working conditions as people working as independently as possible and cooperating only when there is realized value from doing so (i.e. you have eggs and I have flour, and a cake is needed, rather than we both have both, so let's get together and chat and bake a cake).

[Michael]

The article seems to place value on people's willingness to become cogs in a larger machine. That is, the 'nice'/'cooperative' people are the ones that will make cookies for the local bake sale whereas the 'rich' are less likely to do so (perhaps doing nothing, or perhaps just cutting a check and not bothering with the muffins). Further, the parallel study cited indicates that this is, apparently, a result of anyone being exposed to material wealth in an ownership capacity -- even a hypothetical one.

I wonder if this is a correlation versus causation issue. Perhaps people that are interested in seizing leadership positions or else standing away from the herd tend to be better at the tasks in life that lead to accumulation of wealth -- the politician versus the guy that goes door to door for the campaign, the guy who studies nights and works overtime at the office versus the guy who socializes at the water cooler, the guy who plays quarterback instead of blocking as a unit for the quarterback, etc.

I'd say that maybe these characteristics that distinguish the two types of people (megalomania/ambition/attention-seeking/perfectionist versus sociable/cooperative/content-with-less/part-of-the-herd) exist beforehand and tend to lead to different types of outcome.

Anecdotally, I'm not a particularly 'cooperative' person. The idea of participating in some kind of neighborhood bake sale would need to be accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol in order to be tolerable. I'm not a big office socializer and tend to be more interested in talking about ideas and concepts than going out to lunch with the gang every day. I live in a condo association and, for the most part, I think its activities are the province of people with too much time on their hands and too much interest in what color their neighbors paint their front doors. I prefer to be left alone and I don't really care what other people do. If offered the choice between a fun-run and donating 20 bucks to charity, I would opt for the latter.

But, all that was as true when I was working in retail after college for minimum wage as it is now that I'm doing a bit better. And, my tendency to give money away or to do favors for people is unaltered from that time period as well. I think I just have certain characteristics - I prefer to work and think on my own or in a leadership capacity rather than in a cooperative one. I view the ideal working conditions as people working as independently as possible and cooperating only when there is realized value from doing so (i.e. you have eggs and I have flour, and a cake is needed, rather than we both have both, so let's get together and chat and bake a cake).

I think you make a good argument that most of the cultural difference between 'wealthy' people and 'non-wealthy' people is conditioned by personal qualities and/or upbringing.

But that doesn't address the very real research that shows how illusions of affluence seems to inculcate selfish behavior in test subjects.

For example, I have a friend I've known since High School. At age 30, he rather unexpectedly inherited the family business and now rakes in about $1 million a year. He's now rich and a complete asshole and no one likes him any more. He was never like that before. :shrug:

[drgoodtrips]

I think you make a good argument that most of the cultural difference between 'wealthy' people and 'non-wealthy' people is conditioned by personal qualities and/or upbringing.

But that doesn't address the very real research that shows how illusions of affluence seems to inculcate selfish behavior in test subjects.

For example, I have a friend I've known since High School. At age 30, he rather unexpectedly inherited the family business and now rakes in about $1 million a year. He's now rich and a complete asshole and no one likes him any more. He was never like that before. :shrug:

Yeah, I don't have any particular (or different) explanation for the possession of wealth, real or hypothetical, changing behavior. I mean, I think a lot of people let money "go to their heads", but the bit about even an exercise of having money doing it is interesting. You'd think there'd be some kind of lag time.