5 Ways Money May Be Costing Your Humanity
With the widest wealth gap on record between America’s wealthiest families and, well, everyone else, economic inequality is making headlines. History teaches us that concentrated wealth isn’t good for nations, but emerging science is teaching us it’s not good for individuals, either. This week, Savvy Psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendriksen investigates the effects of money on mindset.
Ellen Hendriksen, PhD
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5 Ways Money May Be Costing Your Humanity
Money can’t buy you love, plus it turns out it can cost you your humanity. Research has only begun to delve into the impact money has on mindset, but what’s come up so far ain’t pretty. This week, we’ll investigate what falls by the wayside as the money rolls in, and—thankfully—how to hold on to the things money can’t buy.
Let’s start with what money costs us.
Cost #1: Courtesy. Ever heard this one? What’s the difference between a catfish and a BMW owner? One is a bottom-feeding scum sucker, and the other is a fish.
Unfortunately, BMW owners lived up to this reputation in a 2012 study carried out along a Northern California roadway. Over and over again, a researcher posing as a regular old pedestrian stood at a crosswalk, ready to cross the street as a car approached.
The good news is that eight out of ten cars stopped for the pedestrian and let him cross. But when the research team created a five-tiered system, with low-value “category 1” rusted-out beaters at the bottom and luxury “category 5” vehicles at the top, like BMWs, a pattern became clear. Of the category 1 vehicles, every single car stopped for the pedestrian. But of the category 5 vehicles, almost 50 percent blew through the crosswalk, leaving the hapless pedestrian in a cloud of exhaust.
Now, there hasn’t been a study yet about people who park their car across multiple spots, but I’m willing to bet you know the results already. (I’m getting dangerously close to the line of my zero-judgment promise here, I know.)
Cost #2: Empathy. A series of studies in the journal Psychological Science found that people of lower socioeconomic status were better able to read others’ expressions and emotions. In the study, participants were asked to self-identify their social class using a picture of a ladder with rungs labeled 1-10. The lowest rungs, they were told, represented “those who are the worst off, have the least education, least money, and least respected jobs or no job.” The highest rungs, by contrast, were “those who are the best off, have the most education, most money, and most respected jobs.”
Once the participants self-identified on the 1-10 ladder, they were asked to participate in a hypothetical job interview. The researcher interviewed two participants at a time, asking them standard questions like, “What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?” Afterwards, each participant rated to what extent they felt 20 different emotions such as anger, contempt, sadness, hope, surprise, and worry during the interview.
But then, there was a twist: they were also asked to rate how strongly they thought their interview counterpart felt each emotion.
The result? Lower-class participants were more accurate than higher-class participants at judging the emotions of their interview partner. The higher-class participants weren’t totally clueless, but it was clear they were less skilled at reading—and empathizing with—the emotions of their fellow human traveler.
Cost #3: Compassion. Another study showed that more privileged participants were not exactly cold-hearted, but were, um, fast-hearted? Is that even a thing? Regardless, here’s how it went down.
In the study, researchers asked participants to watch two short videos while hooked up to a heart rate monitor. One was an instructional video where a woman explained how to build a patio wall, while the other was a documentary clip of kids with cancer going through chemotherapy.
Don’t worry, nobody was a cold-hearted jerk—all the participants reported, on average, feeling five times as much compassion while watching the cancer video as they did while watching the patio video. But how much compassion they felt went along with their social class: lower-class participants reported feeling significantly greater compassion for the kids with cancer than the upper-class participants.
But their lower compassion wasn’t just measurable in words. It’s well-established that heart rate deceleration—a slowing heartbeat—goes along feelings of sympathy and focusing on others rather than oneself. The theory is that this is part of the body’s preparation to connect with and take care of someone else. In the study, lower-class participants showed greater heart rate deceleration in response to the cancer video than the more privileged participants, whose heart rates generally remained steady.
Cost #4: Helpfulness. A study in the uber-prestigious journal Science found that just having money on the mind can change a person’s behavior. In the study, participants played Monopoly with a confederate for seven minutes. But after the game wrapped up, those in one group were left with $4,000 in Monopoly money and asked to imagine a future in which they were rich, while those in the other group were left with $200 and asked to imagine a future in which their finances were strained. Then participants filled out some bogus forms and got up to leave, thinking the study was over. But it had only just begun.
As each participant made their way out, a researcher carrying a pile of office supplies walked in front of them and accidentally-on-purpose spilled a box of exactly 27 pencils. Now came the real question: how many pencils would each person pick up?
The good news: No one put their nose in the air and strode away. Every single person helped pick up the pencils. But the group that had been primed with wealth picked up significantly fewer. They were helpful, but just not as helpful.
Cost #5: Ethics. A final study was elegant in its simplicity. Participants were primed to think of themselves as higher-class or lower-class by comparing themselves to the very top or the very bottom. Then, after filling out some forms as a distraction, they were shown a jar of candy and told it was for kids participating in studies in another lab. Then the researchers simply counted how many candies each participant took. Those who were primed to think of themselves as comparatively wealthy really did take (more) candy from a baby.
Do jerks win the race, while nice guys finish last?
Now, why does all this happen? Are rich people just a-holes? Do jerks win the race, while nice guys finish last? The jury is still out, but here are some theories on why, in the words of Cyndi Lauper, money changes everything.
One factor may be the mindset of independence versus interdependence. The wealth of rich people makes them relatively independent—they have the resources to do what they need or want without relying on others. They don’t have to ask friends for a ride to the airport or to borrow a dress for their cousin’s wedding. They just pay a driver or buy a new dress. Plus, this independence frees up their time and bandwidth to focus on their own interests rather than those of the people surrounding them.
Second, the mindset of independence is often tied to the idea of self-sufficiency. The well-off think that because they can take care of themselves, others should do the same, which goes hand-in-hand with being less helpful.
There’s also a greater sense of entitlement—the feeling that you’re inherently deserving of privileges. Combined with greater privacy and the resources to deal with possible consequences down the line, entitlement creates a perfect storm for unethical behavior.
In sum, wealth creates a psychological buffer. It’s not that the well-off are uncaring people, it’s that they don’t have to care. Other people’s suffering is sad, to be sure, but it’s not their problem.
Thankfully, all is not lost. It’s relatively simple to restore people’s sense of community, empathy, and compassion. Remember the study where people were asked to rank themselves on the ladder of 1-10? Subsequent studies found that when people are asked to picture themselves in relation to those on the bottom rungs, their empathy and accuracy in detecting emotions magically improved.
To wrap up, happiness is partly comfort and security, to be sure, but it’s also community, togetherness, and feeling part of something larger than yourself. Indeed, it brings life to the saying, “Some people are so poor, all they have is money.”
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About the Author
Dr. Ellen Hendriksen was the host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast from 2014 to 2019. She is a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD). She earned her Ph.D. at UCLA and completed her training at Harvard Medical School. Her scientifically-based, zero-judgment approach is regularly featured in Psychology Today, Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and many other media outlets. Her debut book, HOW TO BE YOURSELF: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety, was published in March 2018.