The psychology of being rich (NOT a house thread!)

[atommom]

If you won a million dollars, what would you do?

This is a common and fun daydream to have which represents freedom to most people--being independently wealthy is the American dream. Would you share that wealth or hoard it greedily? I think most people would like to believe that if they received a sudden windfall, they would share some. But actually, this altruism is probably just an illusion, as demonstrated by a series of experiments by American and Canadian behavioral researchers recently published in Science (Vohs et al 2006). While being wealthy reduces feelings of dependence on others, participants in their tests developed selfish attitudes when presented with wealth that carried over into other aspects of their lives. The authors attribute this to a "self-sufficiency hypothesis," and designed their experiments to prime people to think about money and then observe changes in their behavior.


In one experiment, it was suggested that just thinking about money made people greedy. Subjects were given $2 worth of quarters and then were asked to solve a word puzzle. Some of the puzzles were word-neutral, and others had words denoting money and wealth like "high-paying salary." After finishing the puzzle, they were told they could donate some of their quarters to a student emergency fund. The subjects that completed the neutral puzzle donated an average of $1.34 while those who completed the money-centric puzzle averages a donation of 77 cents.

A second experiment suggested that people who were thinking about money were less likely to go out of their way to help people. Groups of subjects played a game of Monopoly, and then were left in the room with a pile of Monopoly money in plain sight equaling $4000, $200, or no money was there. Then an "accident" was staged where a person walked by and dropped a box of pencils. The subjects who had the least amount of money present helped picked up the most pencils, and the opposite was true of the large pile of money.

http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/2007/01/the_psychology_of_being_rich.php

[Kber]

1. Interesting. I have another take, even though it's purely anecdotal

I have a friend who is both rich and generous, both with her time and her money. She tells the following story to demonstrate one basic difference between growing up wealthy and not.

When she was 8 or 9, she announced to her parents that she wanted a horse. Keep in mind, they had plenty of money and could have easily handed her the horse. Or, they could have simply said that a horse was too big a responsibility for a 9 near old girl.

Instead, her parents set up a system whereby she could earn the money (working jobs outside the house, btw - i.e. for neighbors or local businesses) for to earn money for both the horse and it's upkeep. It took her until she was 14, but she got her horse.

The thing was, whether or not she got the horse was completely in her control. She could either earn it or decide it was too much trouble, but it was completely up to her. So, from an early age her basic world view was anything was possible if she was willing to work for it.

Take me, on the other hand. While I didn't exactly starve, I wasn't exactly upper-middle class either. It was crystal clear from the get go that no matter what, I wasn't getting a horse and it was silly to ask for one. I grew up with the world view that, no matter what, some things just weren't going to happen.

Now we are both adults, but I wonder how our childhoods influence our expectations and lives to this day. I guess raising honest, generous, and civic minded children takes effort and attention in any situation.

[mwb970]

4. She knew she was going to get a horse, and she did.

You knew you wouldn't, and you didn't. Maybe it depends partly on what a person "knows"?

[bumblebee1]

6. Knew she was getting a horse?

Believed was more like it.

[mwb970]

7. A strong belief can become a "knowing".

And that's when magic can happen.

[TahitiNut]

2. Biased testing. That's why I want to be tested. Let me win the Lotto.

:evilgrin:

[Hippo_Tron]

3. How about those who donate their money in their inheritance

Take Warren Buffet, for example. I'm sure he lives in a nice house and has nice things. But just because someone spends money on a house or another large asset doesn't mean that the money will stay in that asset forever. Just because someone like Buffet has invested in a nice house doesn't mean that the money he invested can't ultimately be used for a more noble cause. When he has no more use for his nice house or his boat, or whatever else people with that much money buy, he could sell them possibly for even more money than he got them for and then give the money to charity.

I see no reason why people can't enjoy the fruits of their labor and then give their money to noble causes once they have no use for those fruits anymore.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Good point.

I saved money and eventually invested it. I lived on a budget. I built a house.

Alternatively, I could have rented and given the money I would have saved away.

Arguably the effect of compound interest will enable some charity to use the assets of my will to greater benefit than if my estate had been given away $5 at a time as I earned it.

Is charity only good when it's done during one's lifetime?

[Porcupine]

5. "No man eats by his labor alone. No man"

Somebody made the knife, the pan, the stove, his boots. Somebody dug the iron to make the knife, somebody else dug up the coal, another man raised the grain that fed the meat or formed the bread, somebody else made the plow for that man.

Four thousand years ago somebody noticed he could scatter grain on a burned field and more of that grain would grow there. Twenty thousand years before that somebody else learned how to make fire and taught his neighbors.

Yet somehow the wealthy think that they owe nothing to the rest of us. How is this delusion formed? Everything they have was given to them by people dead a thousand years before they were born.

How is it that they owe us nothing when they were given everything?

[atommom]

9. There seem to be very few people with that sense of perspective. nt

[Porcupine]

10. borrowed but valid.

The perspective that is.