January 9, 2015 • 27 mins
It's often said money can't buy happiness -- but what exactly can it do? Could it change the way you think? ...could it make you a bad person? Listen in to learn more.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. Histories write
with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, welcome
back to the show. My name is Matt and I
am Ben and that makes this stuff they don't want
(00:21):
you to know. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today we are
recording our very first podcast of Yes. Isn't that weird?
It's great. I'm excited for it. Yeah, I'm excited. To
my friend, I can't wait to see where this crazy
ride goes. You know, we even had someone recently, uh
(00:41):
email our bosses and say that we need to get
a raise. Oh, yes, yes, I was so kind. Uh
we Yeah, we did have somebody who wrote to us
on Twitter where we're at conspiracy stuff and said, you
guys deserve a raise, and we ingest said right to
our bosses, and they totally did. Yeah. One of our
(01:03):
bosses forwarded the email to us. I don't think we're
in trouble, but we really appreciate that. So we might
who knows, maybe we'll make a little more money and
and uh, we don't want to make too much, right, Yeah,
that's right, because we we've heard this everyone's heard it
that money can't really buy happiness. And you know, we're
(01:25):
not trying to make more money to be happy. Um,
we're trying to get more money because it tends to
make things a little easier, right, Well, As an obsessive collector,
I do want all of the money, but so that
I can have each serial number. Oh, absolutely right. There's
a great Monty Python quote that's about this where he
(01:48):
compares I think it's John Clee. Someone correct me. He
compares chocolate to money and he says, you know, the
love of money gets weird at the top, and I'm
pair for raising here says you know, let's say that
I had a bit of chocolate and you found a
bit of chocolate my refrigerator. Well you would say that's understandable.
(02:09):
Everybody likes chocolate. Let's say that you opened the door
to my house it was just filled with chocolate. And
not only you know, not only did I want all
of the chocolate, I didn't want you to have any
because that's how about chocolate. I I want the chocolate
that you brought into my apartment. So that's an awkward comparison.
I'll have to find the quote, but it is illuminating
(02:30):
because what we have found, surprisingly enough, is that apparently
past a certain threshold, uh, studies indicate that having a
lot of money can make you a bad person. Now,
there are a lot of caveats with that statement, but
and we'll kind of get into those later. But when
we say bad person, we're talking a lot about social norms,
(02:52):
social interaction. Um. And when we say money, we're talking
about pretty high amounts, like large amounts of money. Right. So,
just for comparison, as of two thousand thirteen, the median
household income in the United States was just under fifty
two thousand dollars. That's fifty one thirty nine. And remember
(03:14):
that's a household, so that could be four people, right,
annual income. H Uh. And it's safe to say that
most Americans want more money, even if they're fairly well off.
We'll get into that part, sure, because it means you
get to be you get the next tier of things
where you get a little it's a little easier to
pay off your bills, so you can have more money
to spend on other things, right, sure. And money also
(03:37):
it clearly changes the way we interact with our external environments.
And uh, you know, I can be a bit cynical
about this match. So I'm gonna try to be diplomatic
when I say that in large enough amounts, money often
replaces beauty, talent, intelligence, ability, um, have worthiness really for
(03:58):
admission into top schools and things like that. Yeah, greasing
of the palms and a greasing of other things. And
that sounds wrong and sexual, but it's not. Okay, just
you can grease your way with a little money through
a lot of doors and windows and opportunities. Oh this
greasy world. Okay, Uh, so that is true. That is true.
(04:20):
But there's also a point here where we have to
ask if money has such an enormous potential power in
the external world, then what about the internal world? How
does it change you? Um? And we found that apparently yes, uh,
having a higher level of income or wealth tend to
(04:40):
make people behave in a more selfish, less cooperative manner.
And it's something that we will look into later. That
a lot of people on our video that we just
posted the vlog about five reasons money can make you
a bad person. Um, they're mentioning that maybe it's a
uh a correla action that is opposite or vice versa. Okay, um,
(05:04):
and we'll kind of go into that later. But maybe
having the money doesn't make you bad person. Maybe making
you a bad person get you the money, I see, right,
So maybe it's a skill set that is necessary to
acquire a deal of wealth. And with that kind of
thing in mind here, we just want to mention that
we're not podcasting within with an agenda today. We're not
(05:25):
trying to tell you that being rich is bad. Right.
This is not going to be some clarion call for
socialism or communism or some other ism disguised as a podcast.
And we certainly don't think just on a personal level.
And and Nol I'm I'm including you in this as well. Uh,
big hand for our super producer Noel Brown. As always,
(05:50):
we don't think none of us that one specific type
of government or belief system is going to solve the
rampant systemic problem of inequality in the world today. And furthermore,
the presence of inequality is not necessarily a bad thing.
It's more of a in terms of degree, right, yeah, right,
(06:11):
If you get too much, you can have a huge
amounts of destabilization in a society as a whole or
in parts of the society. Sure. Yeah, And uh, here's
a scary fact for some of the people who follow
US politics and political economy. Right now, I think the
levels of inequality in the United States are higher than
(06:35):
they've been since what right before the depression. I believe
we are getting ready to surpass, if not surpass that
level proportionally where it gilded age ratios. Uh and who
knows what that will bring. But uh, what we're saying
is that inequality to some degree exists in every society.
(06:56):
We also don't think it's possible for one sweeping statement
to describe an entire group. For every you know, Al Dunlap,
there's a Warren buffet of some sort, right. The idea
is that there are a whole lot of people with
a whole lot of money, um, but of course there
are a whole hell of a lot more people with
(07:16):
little to none of it. And you know, we're not
saying that these statements when we're talking about studies in
the future here, very near future, we're not saying they
apply to everybody. They just applied in these particular uh
case studies. Right. Yeah. What we are saying, however, is
that people with a lot of money do have tendencies
(07:38):
or likelihoods towards certain activities that the poor are much
less likely to do. And what we're going to see
here is that multiple studies find that high income people
in this threshold of what high income has varies, tend
to do shady, sketchy things. That is not the word
I put in the out, shady and sketchy things. Now this, uh,
(08:03):
this research does bear it out, and we're going to
learn that people very high incomes are more likely to
be a bad driver, to cheat or lie, to feel
less empathy towards other human beings, to steal or shoplift,
and also to stink at reading the emotions, the facial
expressions and body language of another person. Yeah, which is
(08:25):
an important thing, and we'll find some interesting wrinkles to
this story. But before we continue, one thing we should
do real quick is say the difference between income and wealth.
Income is what you receive for a job. So if
you make twenty dollars a year or two and fifty
(08:47):
thousand dollars a year, that would be your income. Wealth
will be like an asset, so right houses, property stocks
um often inherited right and that's why you can hear
stories about you know European aristocrats who come from very
(09:08):
old families and have technically a lot of wealth because
they've inherited these estates, but they don't have an income
to support the taxation or the maintenance or the upkeep. Uh.
And it's a it's a very strange problem to be in.
But but we want to say that there is a
difference between income and wealth. While we may use these interchangeably,
(09:33):
there is definitely a difference. Absolutely. Now, before we get
into the actual studies, Ben I think we should take
a quick break here and hear a word from our sponsors,
and we are back. So we talked a little bit
about wealth versus income, the the strange things that money
(09:59):
can do, just society, the love of money being root
of all evil, whether money can buy happiness. But let's
talk about some specific studies. Well, what what are we
basing these accusations of lying and cheating and stealing upon. Well,
we're we're basing it on fairly liberal institutions that have
(10:23):
a couple of people, especially this gentleman named Paul piff
who have led studies, teams of people who have been
studying this stuff, um, the effects of wealth and the
effects of higher incomes and the actions of people with
higher incomes versus the actions of people with lower incomes.
And they published uh or he published his paper, and
(10:44):
the team published their paper in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. And there are a variety of
these studies, and we found them to be extremely interesting
and kind of giving a window into something that I
at least had not heard of it being studied before. Yeah,
and you see Berkeley, which will pop up several times
(11:07):
in this podcast. They had their study on wealth and driving.
There's a quote here that comes from a writer named
Benjamin Preston writing for The New York Times. I want
to be transparent with everybody. I have a huge bias
toward other people named Ben. Go team Ben. If you're
listening to this podcast and your name is Ben, I'm
(11:29):
high fiving you. Don't the airways, don't. Matt is Man.
We are legion, my friend. There are a lot of
you guys, more and more every year. I don't know
what's going on with it. But that's another episode asually
from the eighties. So Benjamin Preston writes the following summation
of this study on wealth and driving In California, where
(11:53):
the study was conducted, state law requires motorists to stop
at crosswalks where pedestrians are present, allowing them to cross
the road. Paul piff said his team selected a specific
crosswalk to observe, then had a pedestrian appear on the
edge of the curb as a car approached. As the
pedestrians stepped into the road, a researcher marked down the
driver's reaction to the pedestrian. This was done with a
(12:14):
hundred and fifty two drivers, and they also wrote down
things like what type of vehicle was being driven. Um,
and here's some interesting things that they found. The drivers
driving nicer, more expensive cars, let's say, we're less likely
to obey this particular traffic law. They also found a
(12:35):
specific car was the standout. Right, let's see if you
can guess what it is. Did you say, BMW You're right, Yeah,
apparently you guys, BMW's were the worst in this study. Now,
of course, this is not a one to one thing.
There's some important things about this study that we should remember,
which is that I don't know where you live, ladies
(12:58):
and gentlemen, but Atlanta is full of people who bought
cars they can't afford. Oh, yes, you it should be
known that you can drive a nice car and still
be an awesome human being. You can also drive a
really nice car and have no money for anything else. Yeah,
or you could be a really really bad driver in
(13:20):
you know, a nineteen eighties Toyota, Chtersella or something. Totally valid.
And with that in mind, that was not the only
study that was done. We've got another study here about cheating,
and Paul piff found that the wealthy were more likely
to lie in negotiations too. I guess cheat in a game.
(13:44):
And we we talked about this cheating study on our
video that we just put out where I think it
was a fifty dollar was it is that the one
we have a dollar cash prize. Yes, and you have
two people and you try and win the fifty dollars. Yeah.
And let's say one person is making fifteen thousand or
(14:04):
less per year an income and another person is making
a hundred and fifty thousand or more. It's a big variation.
And there's a weird thing that that the study finds. Yeah,
the people making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars or
more a year were much more likely to cheat to
gain to gain this fifty dollar prize um when the
(14:28):
more uh, the more honest people seem to be the
ones who are making much less money. Now, it's really interesting.
We talked about it in the video as well, that
fifty dollars means so very little proportionately to someone making
a large amount of money every year. Right, Yeah, it's
a smaller slice of the pie. I mean, it's almost
almost nothing. But then if you look at someone who
(14:48):
may be struggling to I mean, if you if you
make fifteen thousand dollars or less in the United States
right now, the cost of living in most places is
going to be so higher than that. Yeah, it's it's
pretty difficult, and a lot of people, of course, gets
stuck in what's called the poverty doughnut hole where the
(15:09):
government will actually say that someone makes too much money
having a job, right or they're they're they're doing just
a little bit too well to get any kind of assistance,
and it creates, it can create uh, situations where someone says, wow,
it's it's actually better for me to not have a job,
(15:35):
which is which is strange in such a Kafka novel,
Waiting to happen. But the study just to bring it
back to that thing we mentioned earlier, if it's vice versa,
maybe because it's not important for the person making h
a year to gain that fifty dollars. But maybe they're
just really really good at convincing someone that that money
(15:58):
should go to them, or maybe their skill set building
towards this correlation. Maybe the skill set, maybe the personality
traits we're talking about, are some of the pieces necessary
to acquire an abnormal amount of wealth. Right, be good
at playing the game, right, Yeah, that's that's the idea. Oh,
speaking of games, there's another study that I know you
(16:18):
would enjoy um this This one is a little bit different.
It's Monopoly, So we all know Monopoly stuff you should
know actually has a great podcast on it if you
haven't checked it out yet. Monopoly used to be called
the Landlord's Game when it was originally invented, and it
had a third round, which was this final part of
(16:40):
the game, and it was meant to teach about the
evils or the dangers of un um unconstrained capitalism. I
guess go for it. You are now the one. So
Parker brothers, you know when they when they stole it.
They took out that ending of the game, right, so
(17:01):
totally change the message of it. And uh, it has become,
i don't know, an enjoyable thing, but also a thing
that destroys families at gatherings. People fight over it for sure.
Here's the study that some people conducted with playing Monopoly
based on a coin toss. Uh. So there's a winner
and a loser in the coin toss. Someone would win
(17:23):
the coin toss they call heads its heads whatever. Because
they won the coin toss, they would be given extra
money and uh allowed to roll two dice. So here's
the interesting thing. Of course, they you know, they're kicking
butt all crossed from boardwalk to Atlantic and uh what's
(17:45):
really fascinating is that these people, when astir rate their performance,
overwhelmingly said that they won the game because they are
good Monopoly players. So they said, it's not my inherited
or randomly assigned head start I earned. This isn't that crazy,
(18:08):
it's weird. It's and I think it applies to to this.
But there's um another another thing here. This is one
of the ones that you and I have spent a
lot of time thinking about. And that's the lack of empathy. Yeah,
there are a couple of these studies indicate that the wealthy,
you know, not only might be good at cheating or
(18:30):
have a you know, have a tendency to tendency um
and you know, maybe can't drive so well. They also,
I feel like we're making such a stereotype. I know
that's exactly what we're doing. But you can't apply to everybody,
even though I'm totally saying it like it applies to everybody.
So what this study says, I'm sorry, we'll get back
(18:50):
to it. So the study said that perhaps the wealthy
experience a a compassion or an empathy that is different
than a lot of other people. It's there's a lack
of it almost or a uh much lesser degree. Yeah.
We talked about this one in the video too. So
there are parts of your brain that are associated with empathy,
(19:15):
with the experience of putting oneself and someone else's shoe,
you know, seeing somebody in pain and going, oh, that's terrible.
I know what that would be like, I can understand that, right, Yeah,
and thinking of people as a human being pretty much. Uh.
What they found when they had people watched different videos
(19:36):
was that the area of the brain associated with empathy
has less activity in higher income people. That's so weird.
So they're literally watching this video of kids with cancer
and people who made a lower income are more likely
to be empathetic people who are making a higher amount
(19:59):
of income. It's just it's physically not registering in the
same way. See. And I was wondering how much of
that might have to do with the stories that are
told to people of different um wealth factor or different
wealth levels. Okay, um, I mean if you think about
something like iron Rand and the stories that are told there,
(20:23):
then other stories maybe about community and um, people working together.
I'm just I wonder how are they Upbringing in a
household changes the way that your brain then for the
rest of your life thinks about these interactions. So how
how does the socio economic framing of thank you for
(20:44):
putting another like? How It's a great question though, How
does uh how does somebody's background in their culture influence
their current perception? YEA, what is another human being to you?
Like just someone walking on the street. What does that
person represent? Is it someone you know you can have
a conversation with and talk to, maybe work with in
(21:04):
the future, maybe it's someone that you want to beat
at monopoly, you know, or are people just objects in
space to you? Uh so that that that last part
I started a little bit serial killer issue. Yeah. We
also know that the wealthy were apparently more likely to shoplift.
There was an interesting study in the United Kingdom that
(21:28):
indicated shoplifting was growing amid among women, younger women with
from higher class backgrounds. And we've heard stories of that.
You've seen him in the newspaper. I'm sure wasn't there
a celebrity and actress in the US who was a shoplifter?
There were, I think there were a few, but I
(21:48):
can't remember which ones they were. Well right in and
let us know who's shoplifting. Also, Andrew W. K who
writes for the New York Times now has a great
advice column. You and I have been reading this and
he has a cool article that came out about shoplifting recently.
So check it out. I have not seen it. You
don't have to do that. Yeah, it's uh, you know,
it's a it's a very different approach artistically when you
(22:13):
compared to his albums. And then there's one more note
here that kind of doves tails onto the empathy, the
lack of empathy or perceived lack of empathy, which has
to do with reading other people, and wealthy in general,
from these studies, seem to be less likely to be
good at reading someone. And we kind of mentioned that earlier,
but it's just the idea of if you're sitting across
(22:34):
from someone and or if you look at a picture
of someone's face, and I think that's what happened in
the study. It was pictures of humans faces and you
just decide what emotion they're feeling, if any, and write
all that. So it's weird because it sounds like if
you are cheating or lying, you should be good at
reading people, but apparently that is not the case. And
(22:57):
this brings us to our implications. Implications here are that
money can indeed change a person in some fundamental, physically
measurable ways, but also these studies are at times a
bit contradictory. And by the way, we're talking about the brain,
talking about specific physical changes in your brain, and we
(23:18):
we also know, oh this is I know we have
to go, but this is so interesting. We also know
that mind over matter exists. If you've listened to our
earlier podcast, I think we have mentioned this before the
nature of the thoughts that you have changed the physical
structure of your brain. It's true that monks who meditate
(23:39):
have a larger section of the brain associated with compassion.
And it's true that London cab drivers, way back before
the days of uber and GPS, London black cab drivers
had to take this thing called the knowledge and this
test was so rigorous and there there um exercise eyes
(24:00):
of memory so constant, uh and unending and intricate and
sophisticated that their areas of the brain associated with memory
and spatial aptitude is larger than the average persons. I
love that there's a physical connection between your thoughts and
your brain. So are wealthy thoughts then changing people's brains.
(24:23):
That's an interesting question. We don't have the answer, um,
but we know that this can kind of explain why
so many people in power get accused of not caring
for others. Yeah. Absolutely, And Okay, one more thing you
want to mention here is Dunbar's number, which is the
number of relationships that human being can have comfortably uh.
(24:43):
And it's estimated somewhere between I think a hundred and
two and or fifty, but usually it just goes right
to one fifty. Yeah, that's how many people you can
think of as actual human beings. Uh, this, this idea
is is interesting. We have some videos on it too.
It baffles us, especially in the digital world. You know,
you see somebody with a thousand Facebook friends and you think,
(25:06):
do you have a thousand Facebook friends? Kevin? Yeah? Absolutely? Uh,
it's I don't know. To me, that is huge, especially
if you look at someone who has a million followers
on Twitter or whatever that kind of thing. How many
of those people are real human beings to that person? Right?
And now let's again, let's make sure that when we
close out here, we don't talk in just stark and
(25:29):
black and white terms good and bad, because it may
be that the poor exhibit more empathy because they generally
rely on a community. There's an interdependence. It takes a village.
Exactly is it beneficial for someone with less money to
elicit the aid or at least the compassion of another
human being and other people because they need it? Right?
(25:51):
And does wealth afford you the luxury to of self
consideration and self awareness? There? You know, we have these
kind of debates put so often in um emotionally manipulative
terms like oh, greed is good and people are out
to get you, or you know, the wealthy don't care.
(26:12):
But I don't think either of those are completely true.
But enough about my opinion. Let us know what you think. Yeah,
right to us on Facebook we are conspiracy Stuff. You
can find us on Twitter. We're at conspiracy Stuff, and
you can go to our website stuff they don't want
you to know? Dot com? Um what else? Ben uh?
(26:33):
If you would like to send us an email, we
would love to read it. Our best episodes come from
listeners suggestions, so you can go ahead and right to
Matt Noel and myself, we are conspiracy and how stuff
works dot com. From more on this topic and other
unexplained and on the visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff.
(26:57):
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
hand add conspiracy Stuff
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. Histories write
with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, welcome
back to the show. My name is Matt and I
am Ben and that makes this stuff they don't want
(00:21):
you to know. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today we are
recording our very first podcast of Yes. Isn't that weird?
It's great. I'm excited for it. Yeah, I'm excited. To
my friend, I can't wait to see where this crazy
ride goes. You know, we even had someone recently, uh
(00:41):
email our bosses and say that we need to get
a raise. Oh, yes, yes, I was so kind. Uh
we Yeah, we did have somebody who wrote to us
on Twitter where we're at conspiracy stuff and said, you
guys deserve a raise, and we ingest said right to
our bosses, and they totally did. Yeah. One of our
(01:03):
bosses forwarded the email to us. I don't think we're
in trouble, but we really appreciate that. So we might
who knows, maybe we'll make a little more money and
and uh, we don't want to make too much, right, Yeah,
that's right, because we we've heard this everyone's heard it
that money can't really buy happiness. And you know, we're
(01:25):
not trying to make more money to be happy. Um,
we're trying to get more money because it tends to
make things a little easier, right, Well, As an obsessive collector,
I do want all of the money, but so that
I can have each serial number. Oh, absolutely right. There's
a great Monty Python quote that's about this where he
(01:48):
compares I think it's John Clee. Someone correct me. He
compares chocolate to money and he says, you know, the
love of money gets weird at the top, and I'm
pair for raising here says you know, let's say that
I had a bit of chocolate and you found a
bit of chocolate my refrigerator. Well you would say that's understandable.
(02:09):
Everybody likes chocolate. Let's say that you opened the door
to my house it was just filled with chocolate. And
not only you know, not only did I want all
of the chocolate, I didn't want you to have any
because that's how about chocolate. I I want the chocolate
that you brought into my apartment. So that's an awkward comparison.
I'll have to find the quote, but it is illuminating
(02:30):
because what we have found, surprisingly enough, is that apparently
past a certain threshold, uh, studies indicate that having a
lot of money can make you a bad person. Now,
there are a lot of caveats with that statement, but
and we'll kind of get into those later. But when
we say bad person, we're talking a lot about social norms,
(02:52):
social interaction. Um. And when we say money, we're talking
about pretty high amounts, like large amounts of money. Right. So,
just for comparison, as of two thousand thirteen, the median
household income in the United States was just under fifty
two thousand dollars. That's fifty one thirty nine. And remember
(03:14):
that's a household, so that could be four people, right,
annual income. H Uh. And it's safe to say that
most Americans want more money, even if they're fairly well off.
We'll get into that part, sure, because it means you
get to be you get the next tier of things
where you get a little it's a little easier to
pay off your bills, so you can have more money
to spend on other things, right, sure. And money also
(03:37):
it clearly changes the way we interact with our external environments.
And uh, you know, I can be a bit cynical
about this match. So I'm gonna try to be diplomatic
when I say that in large enough amounts, money often
replaces beauty, talent, intelligence, ability, um, have worthiness really for
(03:58):
admission into top schools and things like that. Yeah, greasing
of the palms and a greasing of other things. And
that sounds wrong and sexual, but it's not. Okay, just
you can grease your way with a little money through
a lot of doors and windows and opportunities. Oh this
greasy world. Okay, Uh, so that is true. That is true.
(04:20):
But there's also a point here where we have to
ask if money has such an enormous potential power in
the external world, then what about the internal world? How
does it change you? Um? And we found that apparently yes, uh,
having a higher level of income or wealth tend to
(04:40):
make people behave in a more selfish, less cooperative manner.
And it's something that we will look into later. That
a lot of people on our video that we just
posted the vlog about five reasons money can make you
a bad person. Um, they're mentioning that maybe it's a
uh a correla action that is opposite or vice versa. Okay, um,
(05:04):
and we'll kind of go into that later. But maybe
having the money doesn't make you bad person. Maybe making
you a bad person get you the money, I see, right,
So maybe it's a skill set that is necessary to
acquire a deal of wealth. And with that kind of
thing in mind here, we just want to mention that
we're not podcasting within with an agenda today. We're not
(05:25):
trying to tell you that being rich is bad. Right.
This is not going to be some clarion call for
socialism or communism or some other ism disguised as a podcast.
And we certainly don't think just on a personal level.
And and Nol I'm I'm including you in this as well. Uh,
big hand for our super producer Noel Brown. As always,
(05:50):
we don't think none of us that one specific type
of government or belief system is going to solve the
rampant systemic problem of inequality in the world today. And furthermore,
the presence of inequality is not necessarily a bad thing.
It's more of a in terms of degree, right, yeah, right,
(06:11):
If you get too much, you can have a huge
amounts of destabilization in a society as a whole or
in parts of the society. Sure. Yeah, And uh, here's
a scary fact for some of the people who follow
US politics and political economy. Right now, I think the
levels of inequality in the United States are higher than
(06:35):
they've been since what right before the depression. I believe
we are getting ready to surpass, if not surpass that
level proportionally where it gilded age ratios. Uh and who
knows what that will bring. But uh, what we're saying
is that inequality to some degree exists in every society.
(06:56):
We also don't think it's possible for one sweeping statement
to describe an entire group. For every you know, Al Dunlap,
there's a Warren buffet of some sort, right. The idea
is that there are a whole lot of people with
a whole lot of money, um, but of course there
are a whole hell of a lot more people with
(07:16):
little to none of it. And you know, we're not
saying that these statements when we're talking about studies in
the future here, very near future, we're not saying they
apply to everybody. They just applied in these particular uh
case studies. Right. Yeah. What we are saying, however, is
that people with a lot of money do have tendencies
(07:38):
or likelihoods towards certain activities that the poor are much
less likely to do. And what we're going to see
here is that multiple studies find that high income people
in this threshold of what high income has varies, tend
to do shady, sketchy things. That is not the word
I put in the out, shady and sketchy things. Now this, uh,
(08:03):
this research does bear it out, and we're going to
learn that people very high incomes are more likely to
be a bad driver, to cheat or lie, to feel
less empathy towards other human beings, to steal or shoplift,
and also to stink at reading the emotions, the facial
expressions and body language of another person. Yeah, which is
(08:25):
an important thing, and we'll find some interesting wrinkles to
this story. But before we continue, one thing we should
do real quick is say the difference between income and wealth.
Income is what you receive for a job. So if
you make twenty dollars a year or two and fifty
(08:47):
thousand dollars a year, that would be your income. Wealth
will be like an asset, so right houses, property stocks
um often inherited right and that's why you can hear
stories about you know European aristocrats who come from very
(09:08):
old families and have technically a lot of wealth because
they've inherited these estates, but they don't have an income
to support the taxation or the maintenance or the upkeep. Uh.
And it's a it's a very strange problem to be in.
But but we want to say that there is a
difference between income and wealth. While we may use these interchangeably,
(09:33):
there is definitely a difference. Absolutely. Now, before we get
into the actual studies, Ben I think we should take
a quick break here and hear a word from our sponsors,
and we are back. So we talked a little bit
about wealth versus income, the the strange things that money
(09:59):
can do, just society, the love of money being root
of all evil, whether money can buy happiness. But let's
talk about some specific studies. Well, what what are we
basing these accusations of lying and cheating and stealing upon. Well,
we're we're basing it on fairly liberal institutions that have
(10:23):
a couple of people, especially this gentleman named Paul piff
who have led studies, teams of people who have been
studying this stuff, um, the effects of wealth and the
effects of higher incomes and the actions of people with
higher incomes versus the actions of people with lower incomes.
And they published uh or he published his paper, and
(10:44):
the team published their paper in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. And there are a variety of
these studies, and we found them to be extremely interesting
and kind of giving a window into something that I
at least had not heard of it being studied before. Yeah,
and you see Berkeley, which will pop up several times
(11:07):
in this podcast. They had their study on wealth and driving.
There's a quote here that comes from a writer named
Benjamin Preston writing for The New York Times. I want
to be transparent with everybody. I have a huge bias
toward other people named Ben. Go team Ben. If you're
listening to this podcast and your name is Ben, I'm
(11:29):
high fiving you. Don't the airways, don't. Matt is Man.
We are legion, my friend. There are a lot of
you guys, more and more every year. I don't know
what's going on with it. But that's another episode asually
from the eighties. So Benjamin Preston writes the following summation
of this study on wealth and driving In California, where
(11:53):
the study was conducted, state law requires motorists to stop
at crosswalks where pedestrians are present, allowing them to cross
the road. Paul piff said his team selected a specific
crosswalk to observe, then had a pedestrian appear on the
edge of the curb as a car approached. As the
pedestrians stepped into the road, a researcher marked down the
driver's reaction to the pedestrian. This was done with a
(12:14):
hundred and fifty two drivers, and they also wrote down
things like what type of vehicle was being driven. Um,
and here's some interesting things that they found. The drivers
driving nicer, more expensive cars, let's say, we're less likely
to obey this particular traffic law. They also found a
(12:35):
specific car was the standout. Right, let's see if you
can guess what it is. Did you say, BMW You're right, Yeah,
apparently you guys, BMW's were the worst in this study. Now,
of course, this is not a one to one thing.
There's some important things about this study that we should remember,
which is that I don't know where you live, ladies
(12:58):
and gentlemen, but Atlanta is full of people who bought
cars they can't afford. Oh, yes, you it should be
known that you can drive a nice car and still
be an awesome human being. You can also drive a
really nice car and have no money for anything else. Yeah,
or you could be a really really bad driver in
(13:20):
you know, a nineteen eighties Toyota, Chtersella or something. Totally valid.
And with that in mind, that was not the only
study that was done. We've got another study here about cheating,
and Paul piff found that the wealthy were more likely
to lie in negotiations too. I guess cheat in a game.
(13:44):
And we we talked about this cheating study on our
video that we just put out where I think it
was a fifty dollar was it is that the one
we have a dollar cash prize. Yes, and you have
two people and you try and win the fifty dollars. Yeah.
And let's say one person is making fifteen thousand or
(14:04):
less per year an income and another person is making
a hundred and fifty thousand or more. It's a big variation.
And there's a weird thing that that the study finds. Yeah,
the people making a hundred and fifty thousand dollars or
more a year were much more likely to cheat to
gain to gain this fifty dollar prize um when the
(14:28):
more uh, the more honest people seem to be the
ones who are making much less money. Now, it's really interesting.
We talked about it in the video as well, that
fifty dollars means so very little proportionately to someone making
a large amount of money every year. Right, Yeah, it's
a smaller slice of the pie. I mean, it's almost
almost nothing. But then if you look at someone who
(14:48):
may be struggling to I mean, if you if you
make fifteen thousand dollars or less in the United States
right now, the cost of living in most places is
going to be so higher than that. Yeah, it's it's
pretty difficult, and a lot of people, of course, gets
stuck in what's called the poverty doughnut hole where the
(15:09):
government will actually say that someone makes too much money
having a job, right or they're they're they're doing just
a little bit too well to get any kind of assistance,
and it creates, it can create uh, situations where someone says, wow,
it's it's actually better for me to not have a job,
(15:35):
which is which is strange in such a Kafka novel,
Waiting to happen. But the study just to bring it
back to that thing we mentioned earlier, if it's vice versa,
maybe because it's not important for the person making h
a year to gain that fifty dollars. But maybe they're
just really really good at convincing someone that that money
(15:58):
should go to them, or maybe their skill set building
towards this correlation. Maybe the skill set, maybe the personality
traits we're talking about, are some of the pieces necessary
to acquire an abnormal amount of wealth. Right, be good
at playing the game, right, Yeah, that's that's the idea. Oh,
speaking of games, there's another study that I know you
(16:18):
would enjoy um this This one is a little bit different.
It's Monopoly, So we all know Monopoly stuff you should
know actually has a great podcast on it if you
haven't checked it out yet. Monopoly used to be called
the Landlord's Game when it was originally invented, and it
had a third round, which was this final part of
(16:40):
the game, and it was meant to teach about the
evils or the dangers of un um unconstrained capitalism. I
guess go for it. You are now the one. So
Parker brothers, you know when they when they stole it.
They took out that ending of the game, right, so
(17:01):
totally change the message of it. And uh, it has become,
i don't know, an enjoyable thing, but also a thing
that destroys families at gatherings. People fight over it for sure.
Here's the study that some people conducted with playing Monopoly
based on a coin toss. Uh. So there's a winner
and a loser in the coin toss. Someone would win
(17:23):
the coin toss they call heads its heads whatever. Because
they won the coin toss, they would be given extra
money and uh allowed to roll two dice. So here's
the interesting thing. Of course, they you know, they're kicking
butt all crossed from boardwalk to Atlantic and uh what's
(17:45):
really fascinating is that these people, when astir rate their performance,
overwhelmingly said that they won the game because they are
good Monopoly players. So they said, it's not my inherited
or randomly assigned head start I earned. This isn't that crazy,
(18:08):
it's weird. It's and I think it applies to to this.
But there's um another another thing here. This is one
of the ones that you and I have spent a
lot of time thinking about. And that's the lack of empathy. Yeah,
there are a couple of these studies indicate that the wealthy,
you know, not only might be good at cheating or
(18:30):
have a you know, have a tendency to tendency um
and you know, maybe can't drive so well. They also,
I feel like we're making such a stereotype. I know
that's exactly what we're doing. But you can't apply to everybody,
even though I'm totally saying it like it applies to everybody.
So what this study says, I'm sorry, we'll get back
(18:50):
to it. So the study said that perhaps the wealthy
experience a a compassion or an empathy that is different
than a lot of other people. It's there's a lack
of it almost or a uh much lesser degree. Yeah.
We talked about this one in the video too. So
there are parts of your brain that are associated with empathy,
(19:15):
with the experience of putting oneself and someone else's shoe,
you know, seeing somebody in pain and going, oh, that's terrible.
I know what that would be like, I can understand that, right, Yeah,
and thinking of people as a human being pretty much. Uh.
What they found when they had people watched different videos
(19:36):
was that the area of the brain associated with empathy
has less activity in higher income people. That's so weird.
So they're literally watching this video of kids with cancer
and people who made a lower income are more likely
to be empathetic people who are making a higher amount
(19:59):
of income. It's just it's physically not registering in the
same way. See. And I was wondering how much of
that might have to do with the stories that are
told to people of different um wealth factor or different
wealth levels. Okay, um, I mean if you think about
something like iron Rand and the stories that are told there,
(20:23):
then other stories maybe about community and um, people working together.
I'm just I wonder how are they Upbringing in a
household changes the way that your brain then for the
rest of your life thinks about these interactions. So how
how does the socio economic framing of thank you for
(20:44):
putting another like? How It's a great question though, How
does uh how does somebody's background in their culture influence
their current perception? YEA, what is another human being to you?
Like just someone walking on the street. What does that
person represent? Is it someone you know you can have
a conversation with and talk to, maybe work with in
(21:04):
the future, maybe it's someone that you want to beat
at monopoly, you know, or are people just objects in
space to you? Uh so that that that last part
I started a little bit serial killer issue. Yeah. We
also know that the wealthy were apparently more likely to shoplift.
There was an interesting study in the United Kingdom that
(21:28):
indicated shoplifting was growing amid among women, younger women with
from higher class backgrounds. And we've heard stories of that.
You've seen him in the newspaper. I'm sure wasn't there
a celebrity and actress in the US who was a shoplifter?
There were, I think there were a few, but I
(21:48):
can't remember which ones they were. Well right in and
let us know who's shoplifting. Also, Andrew W. K who
writes for the New York Times now has a great
advice column. You and I have been reading this and
he has a cool article that came out about shoplifting recently.
So check it out. I have not seen it. You
don't have to do that. Yeah, it's uh, you know,
it's a it's a very different approach artistically when you
(22:13):
compared to his albums. And then there's one more note
here that kind of doves tails onto the empathy, the
lack of empathy or perceived lack of empathy, which has
to do with reading other people, and wealthy in general,
from these studies, seem to be less likely to be
good at reading someone. And we kind of mentioned that earlier,
but it's just the idea of if you're sitting across
(22:34):
from someone and or if you look at a picture
of someone's face, and I think that's what happened in
the study. It was pictures of humans faces and you
just decide what emotion they're feeling, if any, and write
all that. So it's weird because it sounds like if
you are cheating or lying, you should be good at
reading people, but apparently that is not the case. And
(22:57):
this brings us to our implications. Implications here are that
money can indeed change a person in some fundamental, physically
measurable ways, but also these studies are at times a
bit contradictory. And by the way, we're talking about the brain,
talking about specific physical changes in your brain, and we
(23:18):
we also know, oh this is I know we have
to go, but this is so interesting. We also know
that mind over matter exists. If you've listened to our
earlier podcast, I think we have mentioned this before the
nature of the thoughts that you have changed the physical
structure of your brain. It's true that monks who meditate
(23:39):
have a larger section of the brain associated with compassion.
And it's true that London cab drivers, way back before
the days of uber and GPS, London black cab drivers
had to take this thing called the knowledge and this
test was so rigorous and there there um exercise eyes
(24:00):
of memory so constant, uh and unending and intricate and
sophisticated that their areas of the brain associated with memory
and spatial aptitude is larger than the average persons. I
love that there's a physical connection between your thoughts and
your brain. So are wealthy thoughts then changing people's brains.
(24:23):
That's an interesting question. We don't have the answer, um,
but we know that this can kind of explain why
so many people in power get accused of not caring
for others. Yeah. Absolutely, And Okay, one more thing you
want to mention here is Dunbar's number, which is the
number of relationships that human being can have comfortably uh.
(24:43):
And it's estimated somewhere between I think a hundred and
two and or fifty, but usually it just goes right
to one fifty. Yeah, that's how many people you can
think of as actual human beings. Uh, this, this idea
is is interesting. We have some videos on it too.
It baffles us, especially in the digital world. You know,
you see somebody with a thousand Facebook friends and you think,
(25:06):
do you have a thousand Facebook friends? Kevin? Yeah? Absolutely? Uh,
it's I don't know. To me, that is huge, especially
if you look at someone who has a million followers
on Twitter or whatever that kind of thing. How many
of those people are real human beings to that person? Right?
And now let's again, let's make sure that when we
close out here, we don't talk in just stark and
(25:29):
black and white terms good and bad, because it may
be that the poor exhibit more empathy because they generally
rely on a community. There's an interdependence. It takes a village.
Exactly is it beneficial for someone with less money to
elicit the aid or at least the compassion of another
human being and other people because they need it? Right?
(25:51):
And does wealth afford you the luxury to of self
consideration and self awareness? There? You know, we have these
kind of debates put so often in um emotionally manipulative
terms like oh, greed is good and people are out
to get you, or you know, the wealthy don't care.
(26:12):
But I don't think either of those are completely true.
But enough about my opinion. Let us know what you think. Yeah,
right to us on Facebook we are conspiracy Stuff. You
can find us on Twitter. We're at conspiracy Stuff, and
you can go to our website stuff they don't want
you to know? Dot com? Um what else? Ben uh?
(26:33):
If you would like to send us an email, we
would love to read it. Our best episodes come from
listeners suggestions, so you can go ahead and right to
Matt Noel and myself, we are conspiracy and how stuff
works dot com. From more on this topic and other
unexplained and on the visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy Stuff.
(26:57):
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
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