2010-12-17 - Boggspot:
Upper class people show empathy 'deficit'
MSNBC: Upper-class people
are less adept at reading other people's emotions than their lower-class
counterparts, according to a new study published in the journal
Psychological Science
The
Economist: The rich are different from you and me, They are more
selfish
Experiments by Paul Piff and his colleagues at the University of
California, Berkeley, reported this week in the Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, suggest precisely the opposite.
It is the poor, not the rich, who are inclined to charity.
The New York Times: The Charitable-Giving Divide
This compassion deficit — the inability to empathetically relate to
others’ needs — is perhaps not so surprising in a society that for
decades has seen the experiential gap between the well-off and the poor
(and even the middle class) significantly widen.
Audio -
National Public Radio:
Poor Are More Charitable Than The Wealthy
Mr. PIFF: Across these experiments, the main variable that we find that
consistently explains this differential pattern of giving and helping
and generosity among the upper and lower class is feelings of
sensitivity and care for the welfare of other people and, essentially,
the emotion that we call compassion. So it's really compassionate
feelings that exist among the lower class that's seen to provoke these
higher levels of altruism and generosity toward other people.
LiveScience:
To Read Others' Emotions, It Helps to be Poor
Money can't buy you happiness — or social
skills, apparently. A new study finds those who are poor are better at
empathy than the wealthy.
Social Class,
Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy
Michael W. Kraus,
Stéphane
Côté,
Dacher Keltner3
Greater Good Science Center:
The Poor Give More
Piff and his colleagues argue that the poor may feel more compassion
toward others because they are more connected to those around them,
psychologically and socially. They are more dependent on other people to
get by, for instance, and previous research has found that, perhaps as a
result of that dependency, they display more empathy and are more
attuned to other people’s body language than the rich. On the flip side,
as people attain higher status, their ability to take others’
perspectives is diminished.
Greater Good Science Center:
You Can’t Buy Empathy
“What our research is suggesting is that upper
class people don’t have a lower capacity for empathy,” says Kraus. “They
just pay less attention. And if you can put them in a situation where
you get them to pay more attention, you can get some real empathy from
people who are wealthy and affluent.”
To Read Others' Emotions: It Helps to be Poor
Money can't buy you happiness - or social skills, apparently. A new
study finds those who are poor are better at empathy than the wealthy.
Suite101:
Studies Show the Poor are More Empathetic
Paradoxically, individuals of lower socioeconomic status seem to have
superior social and emotional skill.
Higher Education, Lower Empathy
Big Think:
Study: More Privilege Means
Less Empathy
Michael W. Kraus and his co-authors offer three experiments to back up
their argument that upper-class people are less sensitive to others'
feelings than are people of lower social class.
MyFox:
Researchers Claim Upper-Class People Lack Empathy
Upper-class people have trouble recognizing the emotions of others, US
researchers have claimed.
YahooNews:
New study: Poor have more empathy than rich
"Being empathic is one of the first steps to helping other people,"
University of California researcher Michael Kraus told LiveScience. "One
of the first things we're really interested in is what can make wealthy
people -- affluent people, the people with the largest capacity to give
-- what can make them empathic?"
NYPost:
$$ can't buy you empathy
The rich don't much care how the little people feel. When upper-class
people were pitted against lower-income folks, the wealthy were worse at
reading others' emotions and were less empathetic, a new study shows.
Dailymail.co.uk: Why the rich are no good at empathy ...
they don't need to be
People who are rich have trouble recognizing the emotions of others, a
new study claims. The university research has found that those who are
poorer are better at gauging how someone feels because they need to rely
on other people more often
Guardian.co.uk,
Why the rich are meaner than the poor
It may be startling to some that richer people are less generous – but
the statistic tallies with psychological research..... Empathic emotions
are central to compassionate and prosocial tendencies, and Kraus argues
that these cognitive processes are necessary for survival; human beings
who find themselves in a high-status position are more likely to believe
that they can control their own destinies, able to use their power,
authority or wealth independently to keep themselves safe and secure
2010-12-00 -
msnbc.msn.com:
Rich people have no idea what you're thinking
In other words, if you’re looking for a little empathy, you’re more
likely to get it from a poor person than a rich one (just ask Bob
Cratchit).
2010-12-17 - Huffingtonpost:
Wealthy Have Difficulty Detecting Emotions: Study
"They're less concerned and less perceptive of other people's needs and
wishes," said study co-author Michael Kraus, according to
MSNBC. "They show a deficit in empathic accuracy.
