Break the glass and hit the panic button Labour

[Lilith7]

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor...%20credits

Study: Poor Are More Charitable Than The Wealthy




https://www.psychologicalscience.org/new...ggest.html

"The rich are different - & not in a good way

Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.
“We have now done 12 separate studies measuring empathy in every way imaginable, social behavior in every way, and some work on compassion and it’s the same story,” he said. “Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it.”

For the first link I found this https://www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffley/p...havior.pdf which I think might have been what Piff was talking about. The studies do have issues though - small samples of mainly American undergraduate students plus some people from paid university research/email groups. So while the results where interesting, they are far from being a cross section of society. And some of it also used self-reporting of social status, which is likely biased and not necessarily reflective of true financial position. If you try to extract it to NZ social structures across all ages, the results could be totally different.

I see that Piff has done quite a bit of work in this area though so it would interesting but time-consuming to look at more of his articles. I did get side-tracked into this one http://www.the-brights.net/morality/stat...(2012).pdf about compassion, generosity and religion.

The second link looked more promising but again it was a news item rather than the actual article, and my computer couldn't access the full version - something to do with security settings. On looking further I found this https://rascl.berkeley.edu/assets/files/...ualism.pdf which might be the actual article, and if so, I notice that the other authors are Piff and Kraus. It looks interesting, but right at the start I can see that it is also assuming that social class is related to wealth. In some contexts that might be so, but in the sense of how much money people have available to choose between spending, investing or giving I think that separating out categories of class is a mistake, especially in NZ. Some of the richest people are the ones you will see downtown in a torn T-shirt and old jandals, and some of those with the least ready cash are the ones who appear to be living lavish lifestyles. And not forgetting than there are more ways to give than just financially.

Both articles were also old. I had a look for what has been published recently and there is plenty to choose from, including this one https://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl...ne.0286273 that seems to have a good balance, and at least includes the UK as well as the US.

Two more recent articles have similar results.


The UK.


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/202...greed-does


"You report that Rishi Sunak thinks the UK has “moved beyond” judging people on their money, in the wake of the publication of the Sunday Times rich list (Rishi Sunak: Britain has moved on from judging people for being rich, 19 May).
Our research, published this month and based on a nationally representative poll of 2,000 people, shows that the reality is slightly more complicated. While Britons are broadly supportive of people who have earned their wealth by, for example, setting up a business, they look on people who have inherited wealth much less favourably. They also question whether excessively high salaries in some sectors (including the City) are deserved.



It also found that people are worried about the consequences of wealth inequality. Asked about high net worth individuals (defined as people with net wealth of more than £10m), 69% are concerned that they exist while others live in poverty; 65% worry that there are unequal opportunities to accumulate wealth; 75% worry that they have too much influence on the political system; and 79% are concerned that they don’t contribute their fair share.
This concern translates into support for taxing the wealthy – 68% of Britons think that the government should be doing more to tax high net worth individuals. This view isn’t just limited to Guardian readers – the figures broadly hold up for Conservative voters. Something for Sunak to think hard about over the next 18 months."


2023
Greedy people have more money but are less satisfied with their lives



https://www.psypost.org/2023/02/greedy-p...tudy-67731

"A Dutch study published in [i]Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin[/i] suggests that greed may be good for our pockets but comes at a psychological cost. The findings revealed that greedy people tended to have higher household incomes but lower life satisfaction..

Greed can be described as a constant desire to acquire more of something, often to the detriment of others.

Psychology research has largely backed up this negative view of greed, showing that greed is associated with harmful behavior as well as dark personality traits. However, few studies have examined whether greed might be associated with positive outcomes for the individual. For example, an economic view suggests that greed can be advantageous when it comes to generating productivity and wealth.

The finding that greedy people are less satisfied with their lives might be explained by the fact that greedy people are perpetually dissatisfied with what they have and constantly chasing more. It could also be an indirect effect through less satisfying social relationships."

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I like that... There are also more ways to be happy than being wealthy.

But it sure helps.

It just makes the wheels turn more smoothly