Looking for empathy and support? You're more likely to get it from a poor person than you are from a rich one, according to new research published in Psychological Science.
In a series of experiments, the new study found that lower-class people were better at reading emotions on others' faces — one measure of what researchers call empathic accuracy — than people in the upper class. "A lot of what we see is a baseline orientation for the lower class to be more empathetic and the upper class to be less [so]," says Michael Kraus, a co-author of the study and a postdoctoral student at the University of California, San Francisco. (More on Time.com: Battle of the Bris: A Move to Outlaw Circumcision in San Francisco)
Why might that be? "Lower-class environments are much different from upper-class environments," explains Kraus. "Lower-class individuals have to respond chronically to a number of vulnerabilities and social threats. You really need to depend on others so they will tell you if a social threat or opportunity is coming and that makes you more perceptive of emotions."
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PhreezdrydThat's interesting, but I prefer the explanation that many rich and powerful people are just sociopaths.
PeroxideWhat first comes to my mind is Bill Oreilly , and just how easy it is to picture him saying "I don't care."
I swear he says it all the time.
criticalthudsays...@Phreezdryd
and it seems like greed and aggression in general are often socially regarded as positive traits.
gordon gecko?
is there a sociopath bell curve?
GenjiKilpatrickseems like a jump to a conclusion.
Could the results of the study simply say "rich people can't read facial cues as well "?
Trancecoachcan we have a *no_duh channel?
truth-is-the-nemesisOne theory i have is that it is a sort of evolutionary process & wealthy people only associate with other rich people and to quote George Carlin "the goal is to fuck the other guy outta more stuff before he fucks you". so maybe that help in explaining why they don't see anything overtly 'Wrong' with a sad facial expression in their business mindset it actually symbolizes that they have done their job well.
chilaxeDid the researchers consider the counter-argument to their speculation before publishing it? Did they bother to ask rich people for their perspective?
Poor factory workers don't interact with a lot of people in their job, but many well-off careerists' jobs are almost entirely managing relationships... managing team members, managing advisers and mentors, selling clients, making a good impression at industry events, etc.
I'd say more likely than that the well-off are 'not dependent on relationships with others' would be that they have trained their minds to focus on solving problems, closing deals, and ignoring extraneous stimuli.
ryanbennittsays...Did Ana Kasparian grow a beard?
Creaturesays...>> ^chilaxe:
Did the researchers consider the counter-argument to their speculation before publishing it? Did they bother to ask rich people for their perspective?
Poor factory workers don't interact with a lot of people in their job, but many well-off careerists' jobs are almost entirely managing relationships... managing team members, managing advisers and mentors, selling clients, making a good impression at industry events, etc.
I'd say more likely than that the well-off are 'not dependent on relationships with others' would be that they have trained their minds to focus on solving problems, closing deals, and ignoring extraneous stimuli.
How many of the poor actually work in factories? Low-end jobs tend to be service jobs- retail, restaurant, beauty industry, sales etc. These are all jobs where you need to learn to read/please strangers, or you're going to have a crappy day.
While I think that most managers would fall more into the middle class category than super rich, delegating to the same group of people all of the time, and selling to other well off/management types doesn't offer the same skill set. You're just simply not going to encounter the same variety of people, and have to try to make them all happy.
chilaxe@Creature
I think that argument is cherry picking the least social upper class jobs and comparing them against the most social lower class jobs.
There are just as many non-social low-end jobs as their are social low-end jobs... construction workers, dish washers, agriculture workers, factory workers, warehouse workers, delivery drivers... all non-social jobs.
However, if the difference really is just that upper class jobs are less social by nature, than the scientists are merely measuring a gap between social and non-social jobs, rather than some quality about being rich itself. So the study would more accurately be called: "Manual laborers and some rich people have less empathy than wealthy salesmen and some poor people."
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