Rich people cannot feel pain, don't care if they're liked (Psychological experiment)

[Cherchez la Femme]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/17/rich_invulno_trickcyclism/

Being rich makes people invulnerable to pain and steels them against rejection by other people, according to trick-cyclists and whalesong specialists in China and America.

In order to discover this, a group of student recruits at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou were split up into two groups. One was given a sheaf of crisp banknotes to count, the other ordinary dull bits of paper. After this, all of them were forced to plunge their extremities into scalding 50°C water.

Those who had counted money beforehand, apparently, felt less pain than the others. And it doesn't stop there. Crafty psych prof Xinyue Zhou also devised a devilish method of inflicting social rejection on his test subjects, by making them play an online multiplayer game in which a ball was thrown around among a group of players.

Zhou rigged the game, however, so that after a cheery and inclusive period of tossing the cyber ball about, test subjects would then suddenly find that nobody would throw it to them any more - a crushing playground-outcast style experience.

<snip>

*** Slightly dated (2009) but thought some may find this interesting :)

[SpiralHawk]

1. This might very well prove that RepubliWankers have bad breath

...just as we all suspected...among their host of other, um, issues...

[enough]

2. Having lots of money permits all sorts of self-gratification, self-delusion, self-flattery,

and self-distraction, all of which can mask pain and feelings of rejection. It sometimes seems to me that is exactly why some people go after money so fiercely.

[renate]

3. interesting! k&r n/t

[JVS]

4. It must be so awesome!

[Rincewind]

5. On the plus side,

the rich taste like veal.

[EdMaven]

6. I don't see that the experience of fondling money equates to "being rich".

And how is fondling some money you don't get to keep reassuring?

[999998th word]

7. I didn't get that one either.