The age of entitlement: how wealth breeds narcissism
As people get richer, they are more likely to feel entitled, to exploit others, and to cheat. That extends to politics too.
Anne Manne
theguardian.com, Monday 7 July 2014 18.50 EDT
Call it the asshole effect. That is the term coined by US psychologist Paul Piff after he did some stunning new research into the effects of wealth and inequality on peoples attitudes.
As we ponder Joe Hockeys budget and his division of the world into "leaners" and "lifters", as we learn from Oxfam that the richest 1% of Australians now own the same wealth as the bottom 60%, we would do well to consider the implications of Piffs studies. He found that as people grow wealthier, they are more likely to feel entitled, to become meaner and be more likely to exploit others, even to cheat.
Piff conducted a series of revealing experiments. One was remarkably simple. Researchers positioned themselves at crossroads. They watched out for aggressive, selfish behaviour among drivers, and recorded the make and model of the car. Piff found drivers of expensive, high-status vehicles behave worse than those sputtering along in battered Toyota Corollas.
They were four times more likely to cut off drivers with lower status vehicles. As a pedestrian looking carefully left and right before using a crossing, you should pay attention to the kind of car bearing down on you. Drivers of high-status vehicles were three times as likely to fail to yield at pedestrian crossings. In contrast, all the drivers of the least expensive type of car gave way to pedestrians.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/08/the-age-of-entitlement-how-wealth-breeds-narcissism
bananas
(27,509 posts)I think it'll be great when textbooks start using straightforward terminology like that.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Another thing is some shills for that type I know, who are loyal to them either due to ideology or the belief or hope they will one day be among them have very very vicariously thin skin. Always eager to try to deflect criticism on their behalf as either jealousy or "class warfare". Seriously: Their "fans" are as bad as they are.