Science Explains Why The Rich Are Calling Everyone Nazis [View all]

[okaawhatever]

It turns out F. Scott Fitzgerald was right about the very rich: Science confirms that they really are different from you and me.

That difference has been on uncomfortable display lately, with billionaires declaring themselves an oppressed but superheroic minority “being pummeled” and “picked on,” despite their incomes having grown exponentially over the past few decades, leaving the rest of us far behind.

Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California-Berkeley, is not surprised by these rich-guy outbursts, which have included offensive comparisons to Nazi persecution. His research shows that large gobs of money often make people drift away from the reality the rest of us know. So if some of those millionaires and billionaires seem to be completely out-of-touch rich guys lacking sympathy for their fellow man, that's because they are.

“Extreme wealth in our lab makes people less compassionate, they care less about the suffering of others, they’re less empathetic,” he told the Huffington Post in an interview. “They tend to think that they have their tons of money because they have a stronger genetic profile. You put that together, and you get jackasses.”

Studies by Keltner and others have shown that rich people are less likely to share money with a partner or feel empathy for starving children. They are more likely to take candy from a baby.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/rich-clueless-science_n_4855098.html?utm_hp_ref=politics&ir=Politics