Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Article

Poor people are quicker than middle-class or rich individuals to recognize the suffering of others and to show compassion, according to a new study.

It included more than 300 young adults who were divided into groups that took part in three experiments designed to assess their levels of empathy and compassion.

The findings challenge previous research that concluded lower-class people are more likely to react with anxiety and hostility when faced with adversity, said the researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

"These latest results indicate that there's a culture of compassion and cooperation among lower-class individuals that may be born out of threats to their well-being," study author and social psychologist Jennifer Stellar said in a university news release.

"It's not that the upper classes are cold-hearted. They may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering because they haven't had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives," she explained.

The findings, published online Dec. 12 in the journal Emotion, suggest a scientific basis for emotional differences between the rich and poor that are depicted in such Charles Dickens classics as "A Christmas Carol" and "A Tale of Two Cities."

The results also indicate that people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds may do better in cooperative settings than those who are wealthy.

"Upper-class individuals appear to be more self-focused, they've grown up with more freedom and autonomy," Stellar said. "They may do better in an individualist, competitive environment."

When I used to be a pizza delivery guy way back when, it was always the mid-lower class type folks that gave the bestest tips. The bigger the house was, the smaller the tip.. if we even got one at all.

Thus, I concur.

Seems like common sense to me. If you've lived an easy life then of course you're not going to be as quick to recognise hardship.

There's also the fact that if you're not very well off, being friendly and kind gives you a better chance of befriending people and generally being seen as a good guy, which increases your chances in later life.

Not surprised much by the outcome of this study.

In my experience, I've found that to be mostly true, but definitely not ironclad.
I'd like to know a little bit more about the experiment, because for a long time I lived as a lower class and I find there are some severe pricks in that catagory.
Where I lived, you would'nt want to turn your back too long on a lot of the people I lived around.

well rich people tend to be disconnected from reality


so this is quite obvious IMO

Relapse wrote:In my experience, I've found that to be mostly true, but definitely not ironclad.

It doesn't say it is ironclad, that is why the use of the word 'may' and not 'are' in the title.

DIDM wrote:well rich people tend to be disconnected from reality


so this is quite obvious IMO

The reality I lived in was poor people that would lift anything you didn't leave nailed down for drug or beer money and willing to kill someone over a 20 dollar vial of crack.
That's why I say I'd like to know a bit more about the experiment before I sing praises about it's accuracy. It seems to be reaching for a conclusion rather than arriving at one.
I know quite a few rich people that put others far ahead of themselves.
I wonder how the kindness factor divies up betwwen the different levels of poorer class, because in the higher levels of lower income people, I did observe better behavior.

Relapse wrote:

DIDM wrote:well rich people tend to be disconnected from reality


so this is quite obvious IMO

The reality I lived in was poor people that would lift anything you didn't leave nailed down for drug or beer money and willing to kill someone over a 20 dollar vial of crack.
That's why I say I'd like to know a bit more about the experiment before I sing praises about it's accuracy. It seems to be reaching for a conclusion rather than arriving at one.
I know quite a few rich people that put others far ahead of themselves.
I wonder how the kindness factor divies up betwwen the different levels of poorer class.

you must have missed a key word

TEND

that tends to mean not always in the English language

DIDM wrote:

Relapse wrote:

DIDM wrote:well rich people tend to be disconnected from reality


so this is quite obvious IMO

The reality I lived in was poor people that would lift anything you didn't leave nailed down for drug or beer money and willing to kill someone over a 20 dollar vial of crack.
That's why I say I'd like to know a bit more about the experiment before I sing praises about it's accuracy. It seems to be reaching for a conclusion rather than arriving at one.
I know quite a few rich people that put others far ahead of themselves.
I wonder how the kindness factor divies up betwwen the different levels of poorer class.

you must have missed a key word
TEND
that tends to mean not always in the English language

I could say that in my experience, poor people tend to be pricks and backstabbers, and the word "tend" would have as much validity.

Relapse wrote:

DIDM wrote:

Relapse wrote:

DIDM wrote:well rich people tend to be disconnected from reality


so this is quite obvious IMO

The reality I lived in was poor people that would lift anything you didn't leave nailed down for drug or beer money and willing to kill someone over a 20 dollar vial of crack.
That's why I say I'd like to know a bit more about the experiment before I sing praises about it's accuracy. It seems to be reaching for a conclusion rather than arriving at one.
I know quite a few rich people that put others far ahead of themselves.
I wonder how the kindness factor divies up betwwen the different levels of poorer class.

you must have missed a key word
TEND
that tends to mean not always in the English language

I could say that in my experience, poor people tend to be pricks and backstabbers, and the word "tend" would have as much validity.

In my experience those that have lived through hardship TEND to actually care for humanity/

Also you made the sweeping statement about rich people being disconnected from reality. The reason a lot of rich people are rich is the fact that they are quite plugged into reality.

Relapse wrote:Also you made the sweeping statement about rich people being disconnected from reality. The reason a lot of rich people are rich is the fact that they are quite plugged into reality.

not really, in all honesty they loose touch with reality because they have no worries. When you wonder where your next meal is coming from you tend to feel EMPATHY towards other who like you, are starving. When you live in a gated community and have servents you tend to lose that empathy, TEND is a key word here


I have 2 sets of millionaire parents who actually care for the poor, so it isn't a given, it is a TEND to situation. My dad brought a homeless man to Xmas dinner BTW

[quote=DIDM



In my experience those that have lived through hardship TEND to actually care for humanity/

I think it is that rich people may be slower to be kind. It's just easier to ignore others when your needs are met. Not that I'm suggesting material plenty makes people worse, it's just easier to be a jerk when you've got money. IMHO

Good lord, people, chill a bit!

The 'study' in the OP is annoyingly vague. Too many 'may' and 'trend' and 'perhaps' with no numbers at all to back it up... but it does fit with what I have seen in my experience.

Aside from those with actual criminal tendencies (look at whatshisface, Bernie Mac, for a right proper example of a RICH criminal lifting everything that wasn't nailed down), poor people do tend to share a larger percentage of what they have than thier middle-class and upper-class counterparts.

I was pretty sure that this would devolve into petty squandering like this when I posted it, but I didn't expect for someone to slander a dead stand up comedian.

OT is full of surprises it seems while maintaining a standard.

Vulcan wrote:...poor people do tend to share a larger percentage of what they have than thier middle-class and upper-class counterparts.

That isn't necessarily a function of greater generosity, as there are lower limits on what can be shared meaning that, if you have less, sharing anything occupies a larger percentage of what is available to be shared.

dogma wrote:

Vulcan wrote:...poor people do tend to share a larger percentage of what they have than thier middle-class and upper-class counterparts.

That isn't necessarily a function of greater generosity, as there are lower limits on what can be shared meaning that, if you have less, sharing anything occupies a larger percentage of what is available to be shared.

There is that, of course.

I think I'd be considered in the poor tier, and I hate beggars.

I am the 1%

This isn't about giving money. Kindness and money aren't the same thing. It might factor into it, but it wasn't a study of how much money people are willing to give, and it doesn't say that rich people have any less capacity for kindness than poor people, just that poor people may be quicker to notice others suffering and be kind in some fashion.

Necros wrote:When I used to be a pizza delivery guy way back when, it was always the mid-lower class type folks that gave the bestest tips. The bigger the house was, the smaller the tip.. if we even got one at all.

Well, how do you think they got that way - writing a bunch of checks?

Ahtman wrote:I was pretty sure that this would devolve into petty squandering like this when I posted it, but I didn't expect for someone to slander a dead stand up comedian.

Sorry mate.. but If Bernie Mac was a comedian I must rewrite my dictionary. The bloke was about as funny as catching the early flight home and catching your wife in bed with grampa.

And im not hard to please, I even laughed at Roseanne!

Regards the survey.. not interested. These things should always be taken with a fistful of salt. I prefer rich people to poor people generally. Poor people tend to be fatter, lazier and smellier in my experience, but I'll drink with either.

Well, this thread certainly went... poorly.

Maybe the poor are just more aware of their surroundings because live in less secure environments, in general?

Ahtman wrote:

Relapse wrote:In my experience, I've found that to be mostly true, but definitely not ironclad.

It doesn't say it is ironclad, that is why the use of the word 'may' and not 'are' in the title.

Why did you have to try to refute this Ahtman, there was nothing wrong with him saying that.

I'm going to guess that people are confused by the vauge label "lower class" which to nearly everybody means "lower than me."

It probably means working class, or those who are employed but have little financial security.

I'd say that in my experience, the working poor tend to be pretty generous with what they have.

I find the thread title to be misleading.

"It's not that the upper classes are cold-hearted. They may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering because they haven't had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives," she explained.

Kindness or lack thereof doesn't really enter into the argument if your upbringing has resulted in problems not registering as such. Not perceiving problems doesn't make one unkind, but it could be evidence of naievete or a sheltered upbringing.

I know from personal experience, I see a lot more difference in categorical behavior between regional upbringing than I do socioeconomic divides, although this could be the result on me hardly ever being involved with either the chronically poor (those who are poor with the likeliest prospects of staying poor) or the super rich.

It included more than 300 young adults who were divided into groups that took part in three experiments designed to assess their levels of empathy and compassion.

300 isn't really a good sample size. I'm sure their r-squared values came in at acceptable levels, but this is still a small sample size. The 'young adults' thing is also something of a red flag to me because, having participated in and conducted University studies, you tend to have no real budget to ensure a truly diverse sample (and 300 would still be too small to do so). Instead, you cast out your net as widely as you can, and take whomever falls into it. Typically, this means you get a bunch of undergrads who are offered up extra credit in their coursework to participate. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it has to be understood that the results only are applicable to that narrow subset (young adults, probably undergrads), not society in general.

For example, since this is the UC Berkeley campus, you probably don't have any of the lowest economic quintile participating. I'd warrant that they probably had a bell curve distribution of socioeconomic backgrounds that might have been weighted more heavily to the upper ends, since college in Cali isn't cheap. If a normal bell curve would yield 30 individuals in both bottom and top quintiles, it's possible that even a slight offset could result in the bottom quintile, or lowest socioeconomic class distinctions in this study, being based on only 10 participants. That's a really small sample...

I would guess that the participants were all coming from socioeconomic backgrounds where all basic needs are met. That makes it difficult to say that poorer people are more compassionate, because if you've left out the poorest poor people, for whom existence is more Darwinian and competition is necessary for survival, then you've calibrated your study to view the poor with the rosiest of colored lenses. In local news, crime, especially violent crime, sure isn't happening in the nicer neighborhoods.

So without access to the entire research paper, I would like to know how (if) they corrected for sample bias and how distinct the difference in behaviors is between their lowest and highest income levels. Regardless, I don't view this study as the magic bullet for moralising class warfare, and indeed I think it's more a symptom of the wealth/class/age warfare debates than proving the validity of such thinking.

So, here is what I have found. People who are the higher-ups (and thus well off financially) in several of the companies I work for are Blue/Green dominant thinkers (i.e. Logical and Planners) meanwhile, the people who are lower down the chain are Red/Yellow dominant thinkers (I.e. Big Picture/Relationships).

Therefore, if you are a Hermann Brain Blue (logical) type, you are typically weaker in the Red brain (relationship) and therefore less Emotionally Intelligent.

Our business focused society tends to favor Blue/Greens (Logic/Planners) rather than Red/Yellows (Big Picture/Relationship).

Therefore, it makes sense to me that people who are in the Upper and Middle class would be less clued in to Emotional Intelligence factors, since they have been selected by the system to be strong in more analytical areas.



Edit: I knew someone would bring up sampling.

Where do you find the purples?

People who have less tendencies in one area or the other tend to be Whole brain thinkers, and are the best all arounders and open to try different styles of communication and execution.

They can navigate the schmoozing/networking and still do logical validations at the same time.

Typically, I have seen them rise pretty darn fast, then burn out and go do something to rejuvenate themselves.