[[[Read the many good comments]]] A growing body of recent research shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with little such power. ... in other situations we are relatively higher on the totem pole of status — and we, too, tend to pay less attention to those a rung or two down. - Mitchell Tsai

While the wealthy can hire help, those with few material assets are more likely to value their social assets: like the neighbor who will keep an eye on your child from the time she gets home from school until the time you get home from work. The financial difference ends up creating a behavioral difference. Poor people are better attuned to interpersonal relations — with those of the same strata, and the more powerful — than the rich are, because they have to be. - Mitchell Tsai

Social distance makes it all the easier to focus on small differences between groups and to put a negative spin on the ways of others and a positive spin on our own. Freud called this “the narcissism of minor differences"... - Mitchell Tsai

This widening gulf between the haves and have-less troubles me, but not for the obvious reasons. Apart from the financial inequities, I fear the expansion of an entirely different gap, caused by the inability to see oneself in a less advantaged person’s shoes. Reducing the economic gap may be impossible without also addressing the gap in empathy. - Mitchell Tsai

Marcella Daly Mroczkowski: One of the oldest rules of civilization is that if the rich and powerful don't embrace responsibility for how they affect the whole of their country, you don't have a civilization. ... Anacyclosis - the cycle of history in which good government is defined as government for the good of all and bad government that which serves the few at the expense of the many. - Mitchell Tsai

Paul Posner: Income inequality didn't decrease after 1929 because the very wealthy became more empathetic toward those less affluent than themselves. Rather, it decreased because we had a governing class, both Democrats and Republicans, who were willing to pass legislation benefitting the broad majority of American society in the face of opposition from moneyed interests. - Mitchell Tsai

What's missing today is not so empathy, which has probably always been in short supply among the wealthy, but rather political courage. - Mitchell Tsai

Pam Shira Fleetman: Perhaps the lack of empathy also comes from the American ideal of meritocracy - - meaning that, if one is economically disadvantaged, it is due to flaws in one's character (since anyone can make it if they work hard enough). In this view, those who are not "successful" are unworthy and therefore undeserving of help from others. - Mitchell Tsai

Charlotte Scot: Unfortunately, many people of privilege don't realize or accept the premise they are privileged. They view their lifestyle as the norm and anyone who isn't a part of it is a lazy underachiever. - Mitchell Tsai

fd62: All I can say for those whom have no empathy (both rich and poor) is how shallow a life they must have. Maybe they need someone to show them empathy, because of their limited vision of life and of those around them. - Mitchell Tsai

marie: This phenomenon is well documented in social science. In race relations in this country, W.E.B. DuBois gave it a name: 'double consciousness'. Blacks, as a matter of survival, had to always consider the perspective of the whites around them, because if they found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, they could lose a job, their rights, or even their life if they didn't. - Mitchell Tsai

They of course also considered their own perspective and those of their peers in their own communities. Whites however never had any social need to look at things from Blacks' point of view. The phenomenon can be analogized to sex and class as well. - Mitchell Tsai

GK: I'm interested in the disposition of people who start off poor and end up rich. Is there something in the process of gaining wealth that leads to a dismissive personality? Or are people who naturally have cold, indifferent attitudes toward others more likely to succeed financially in our society? - Mitchell Tsai

Doug Terry: This article indicates a truth contained in many novels and through personal experience: if you are ever in need, ever "down and out", your rich friends will desert you. The people who have had trouble themselves are much more likely to be friends through thick and thin. - Mitchell Tsai

A rich person will loan you 10 dollars and congratulate himself. A poor person will give you his last 100 and help you get your car started, too. Poorer people know about life, rich people know about things and how to exploit opportunities for gain. - Mitchell Tsai

JAS: Because I teach at a very affluent university, many of my students also come from wealthy families. What I see are people who are scared to death that they will lose their grip in the upper middle class and that their kids won't have the same opportunities they did. I see very little incentive to help the less fortunate, partly because too much money is flowing out to private schools and university tuition, or to help older children keep up a certain standard of living. - Mitchell Tsai

It is the children of these high income baby boomers I worry about most. They are learning to be isolated from other groups and keep their money close, in order to "keep it in the family". There is great fear among the parents (and their kids can feel the pressure) that the bottom will fall out any day. - Mitchell Tsai

Jessica: People who are wealthier care less not be cause they are wealthier, but because they care less and thus become wealthier. ... Empathetic people are less likely to work in jobs that where cut-throat competition exists or where you have to be aggressive in expanding your business. ... Just read the recent Times articles about the number of women in the dot.com industry and science and math PhDs. Those are examples of two aggressive industries where being empathetic or emotionally healthy are not assets. ... People who are don't stay very long. - Mitchell Tsai

Josh Hill: Some of it, I think, is lack of contact, but some of it also seems to be a consequence of the personality type that achieves wealth. These people tend to be self-interested, unprincipled, and callous. - Mitchell Tsai

Ernie: It is just as likely, if not more likely, that the rich are rich because they have less empathy for others to begin with. ... This relative lack of compassion is precisely what allowed them to be detached from the suffering of others, thus allowing them to make wealth their singular goal in life. - Mitchell Tsai

Paul R Cooper: Having been impressed by Gunner Myrdal's epic study of racism in America I am convinced that most of us don't look back (or down, if you prefer) at those we have risen above. Small differences in income or social status turn those on higher rungs of the ladder away from those they leave behind. - Mitchell Tsai

At the margins between income and social classes competition is fierce, as when in the South white workers feared competition for their jobs from African Americans. But the winners at each level don't look back, and those who rise spectacularly above the great majority of us certainly have no inclination to even think about the plight of the middle class and lower. - Mitchell Tsai

Steve Hoge: And this cognitive dissonance is not ameliorated only by adopting attitudes of self-superiority, entitlement and vilification, but by also by minimizing the actual perceptual awareness of the of the less fortunate; hence the interrupting and talking-over, the distant stare without eye contact, disregard of personal space, etc. - Mitchell Tsai

sk: I agree this is an interesting question. I think the decision to "not care" about others is viewed as sort of a luxury - only the rich and powerful can afford to behave this way - and therefore this behavior is emulated by those who make it in their lifetimes as a marker of their success. - Mitchell Tsai

pfwokf01: I remember a poll, many years ago, that found that nearly 20% of the population considered themselves in the 1%, and an additional nearly 20% believed that some day they would join them. (Math was never our country's strong point). America is about becoming rich, and the Horatio Alger myth still lives as it becomes evan more a fantasy. - Mitchell Tsai

bk: This is even more apparent when we look at how we behave toward those of other species. They are "other." We have absolute power over them, and we are merciless. You have to ask-- to whom do we actually extend empathy? The circle is very small. - Mitchell Tsai

Johnny: The 'rich', well-to-do, and the powerful exhibit a strong sense of entitlement and selfish arrogance in the daily human transactions. These attitudes are present (and I write from personal experience) from their children's sports events to their business and leisure activities - they want what they want when they want it. There is little to no humility and deference to accommodate others. - Mitchell Tsai

Che Beauchard: Some of the comments on this thread are missing the point being presented in the article: The role of being superior elicits the lack of empathic attentiveness, not something inherent in the person. This is revealed because the same person who is the superior in one setting is the inferior in a different setting, and that person's attentiveness and ability to be empathic varies according to the role being played. - Mitchell Tsai

The same person who is inattentive to her inferiors when at the office might be completely attentive when in the company of her grandchildren; no one is claiming that context doesn't matter. - Mitchell Tsai

So, as our society becomes increasingly bifurcated into rich and powerful vs. poor and powerless, the greater the lack of attentiveness and empathy of those on top towards the rest of us. This does not imply a uniformity among those at the top, but it does imply that we are moving toward an increasingly medieval society in which the barons lack empathy for the serfs. - Mitchell Tsai

QUALSOL: Could it be that this is just another liberal biased study? Is it possible that all the empathy shown at the lower end of the social ladder is nothing more than false empathy - as those people have no other option than to rely on their neighbor to watch their children. Imagine what would be if they actually spoke their mind - they'd have no options. So, theres an argument to be made that they wealthy are simply more honest... - Mitchell Tsai