The psychology of inequality and political division

"If we want to fix our politics, we have to do something about inequality," says social psychologist Keith Payne. Showing how economic inequality changes the way people see and behave towards one another, Payne helps explain the rise of the political polarization that's slicing up society -- and challenges us to think twice the next time we dismiss someone for the sake of politics.

You've probably heard by now

that economic inequality
is historically high,

that the wealthiest one-tenth
of one percent in the United States

have as much wealth
as the bottom 90 percent combined,

or that the wealthiest
eight individuals in the world

have as much wealth

as the poorest 3.5 billion
inhabitants of the planet.

But did you know that economic inequality
is associated with shorter lifespans,

less happiness,

more crime

and more drug abuse?

Those sound like problems of poverty,

but among wealthy, developed nations

those health and social problems

are actually more tightly linked
to inequality between incomes

than to absolute incomes.

And because of that,

the United States,

the wealthiest and the most
unequal of nations,

actually fares worse
than all other developed countries.

Surveys show that
large majorities of Americans,

both Democrats and Republicans,

believe inequality is too high
and want more equal pay.

And yet as a society, we don't seem
to be able to find the common ground,

the consensus, the political will
to do anything about it.

Because, as inequality
has risen in recent decades,

political polarization
has risen along with it.

We see those who disagree with us
as idiots or as immoral.

Nearly half of Democrats and Republicans

now think that the other side
is not just mistaken

but a threat to the nation.

And that animosity prevents us
from finding the common ground

to change things.

I'm a social psychology professor
at the University of North Carolina,

and I study the effects of inequality
on people's thinking and behavior.

I'm going to argue that it's not just
an unfortunate coincidence

that inequality and political division
have risen together.

There are good psychological reasons

that inequality drives wedges
in our politics.

That means there are good
psychological paths

to improve both at once.

To understand why inequality
is so powerful,

you have to first understand
that we are constantly comparing ourselves

to other people,

and when we do that,

we really like to come out on top,

and we find it painful
to be on the bottom.

Psychologists call it
the "better-than-average effect."

Most people believe
they're better than average

at just about anything they care about,

which isn't strictly possible,
because that's just what average means.

(Laughter)

But that's the way people feel.

Most people think
they're smarter than average,

harder working than average

and more socially skilled.

Most people think they're
better drivers than average.

(Laughter)

That's true even if you do the study
with a sample of people

currently hospitalized
for a car accident that they caused.

(Laughter)

So we really want to see ourselves
as better than average,

and if we find out otherwise,

it's a painful experience
that we have to cope with.

And we cope with it
by shifting how we see the world.

To understand how this works,

my collaborators and I ran an experiment.

We asked participants to complete
a decision-making task to earn some money,

and in reality, everyone earned
the same amount of money.

But we randomly divided them
into two groups,

and we told one group
that they had done better than average,

and we told the other group
they had done worse than average.

So now we have one group that feels richer
and one group that feels poorer,

but for no objective reason.

And then we asked them some questions.

When we asked them,
"How good are you at making decisions?"

the better-than-average group
said that they were more competent

than the below-average group.

The better-than-average group
said that their success

was a fair outcome of a meritocracy.

The below-average group
thought the system was rigged,

and in this case,
of course, they were right.

(Laughter)

Even though the two groups
had the same amount of money,

the group that felt richer
said we should cut taxes on the wealthy,

cut benefits to the poor.

Let them work hard and be
responsible for themselves, they said.

These are attitudes that we normally
assume are rooted in deeply held values

and a lifetime of experience,

but a 10-minute exercise

that made people feel richer or poorer

was enough to change those views.

This difference between being rich or poor
and feeling rich or poor is important,

because the two don't always
line up very well.

You often hear people say with nostalgia,

"We were poor, but we didn't know it."

That was the case for me growing up,

until one day,

in the fourth-grade lunch line,

we had a new cashier
who didn't know the ropes,

and she asked me for 1.25 dollars.

I was taken aback, because I had never
been asked to pay for my lunch before.

I didn't know what to say,
because I didn't have any money.

And suddenly,
I realized for the first time

that we free lunch kids
were the poor ones.

That awkward moment
in the school lunch line

changed so much for me,

because for the first time, I felt poor.

We didn't have any less money
than the day before,

but for the first time,

I started noticing things differently.

It changed the way I saw the world.

I started noticing how the kids
who paid for their lunch

seemed to dress better
than the free lunch kids.

I started noticing the big yellow blocks
of government cheese

that showed up at our door

and the food stamps my mother
would pull out at the grocery store.

I was always a shy kid,

but I hardly talked at all
after that at school.

Who was I to speak up?

For decades, social scientists
looked for evidence

that feeling deprived
compared to other people

would motivate political action.

They thought it would mobilize
protests, strikes,

maybe even revolutions.

But again and again what they found
was that it paralyzed people,

because the truth is,

feeling less than other people

brings shame.

It makes people turn away,

disgusted with the system.

Feeling better than other
people, though --

now that is motivating.

It motivates us to protect that position,

and it has important consequences
for our politics.

To see why, consider another experiment.

Again, we asked participants
to make decisions to earn some money,

and we told one group
that they had done better than average

and the other group that they
had done worse than average.

And again, the better-than-average group
said it's a fair meritocracy,

cut taxes on the wealthy,

cut benefits on the poor.

But this time, we also asked them
what did they think

about other participants
who disagree with them

on those issues.

Are they smart or incompetent?

Are they reasonable or are they biased?

The better-than-average group
said anybody who disagrees with them

must be incompetent, biased,

blinded by self-interest.

The below-average group

didn't assume that about their opponents.

Now, there are lots of psychology studies

showing that when people agree with us,

we think they're brilliant,

and when people disagree with us,

we tend to think they're idiots.

(Laughter)

But this is new because we found
it was driven entirely by the group

that felt better than average,

who felt entitled to dismiss
those people who disagree with them.

So think about what
this is doing to our politics,

as the haves and have-nots
spread further and further apart.

Yes, a lot of us think
that people on the other side are idiots,

but the people politically engaged enough
to be yelling at each other about politics

are actually mostly the well-off.

In fact, as inequality has grown
in recent decades,

political interest and participation
among the poor has plummeted.

Again, we see that people
who feel left behind

aren't taking to the streets to protest
or organize voter registration drives.

Often, they aren't even voting.

Instead, they're turning away
and dropping out.

So if we want to do something
about extreme inequality,

we have to fix our politics.

And if we want to fix our politics,

we have to do something about inequality.

So what do we do?

The wonderful thing about spirals

is that you can interrupt
at any point in the cycle.

I think our best bet starts
with those of us

who have benefited the most
from inequality's rise,

those of us who have done
better than average.

If you've been successful,

it's natural to chalk up your success
to your own hard work.

But, like the studies I showed you,

everybody does that,

whether or not it really was
the hard work that mattered most.

Every successful person I know

can think of times when they worked hard
and struggled to succeed.

They can also think of times

when they benefited from good luck
or a helping hand

but that part is harder.

Psychologists Shai Davidai
and Tom Gilovich

call it the "headwind-tailwind asymmetry."

When you're struggling against headwinds,

those obstacles are all you can see.

It's what you notice and remember.

But when the wind's at your back
and everything's going your way,

all you notice is yourself

and our own amazing talents.

So we have to stop and think for a minute

to recognize those tailwinds
helping us along.

It's so easy to see
what's wrong with people

who disagree with you.

Some of you decided that I was an idiot
in the first two minutes,

because I said inequality was harmful.

(Laughter)

The hard part is to recognize

that if you were in a different position,

you might see things differently,

just like the subjects in our experiments.

So if you're in the above-average
group in life --

and if you're watching a TED talk,
you most likely are --

(Laughter)

then I leave you with this challenge:

the next time you're tempted to dismiss
someone who disagrees with you

as an idiot,

think about the tailwinds
that helped you get where you are.

What lucky breaks did you get

that might have turned out differently?

What helping hands are you grateful for?

Recognizing those tailwinds
gives us the humility we need

to see that disagreeing with us
doesn't make people idiots.

The real hard work
is in finding common ground,

because it's the well-off
who have the power

and the responsibility to change things.

Thank you.

(Applause)