0:00:00.860,0:00:02.604
You've probably heard by now

0:00:02.628,0:00:05.598
that economic inequality[br]is historically high,

0:00:05.622,0:00:08.749
that the wealthiest one-tenth[br]of one percent in the United States

0:00:08.773,0:00:11.684
have as much wealth[br]as the bottom 90 percent combined,

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or that the wealthiest[br]eight individuals in the world

0:00:15.728,0:00:16.944
have as much wealth

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as the poorest 3.5 billion[br]inhabitants of the planet.

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

0:00:27.664,0:00:29.226
less happiness,

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more crime

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and more drug abuse?

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Those sound like problems of poverty,

0:00:35.247,0:00:37.860
but among wealthy, developed nations

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those health and social problems

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are actually more tightly linked[br]to inequality between incomes

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than to absolute incomes.

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And because of that,

0:00:48.287,0:00:49.570
the United States,

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the wealthiest and the most[br]unequal of nations,

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actually fares worse[br]than all other developed countries.

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Surveys show that[br]large majorities of Americans,

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both Democrats and Republicans,

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believe inequality is too high[br]and want more equal pay.

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

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the consensus, the political will[br]to do anything about it.

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Because, as inequality[br]has risen in recent decades,

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political polarization[br]has risen along with it.

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

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Nearly half of Democrats and Republicans

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now think that the other side[br]is not just mistaken

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but a threat to the nation.

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And that animosity prevents us[br]from finding the common ground

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to change things.

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

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

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

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that inequality and political division[br]have risen together.

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There are good psychological reasons

0:02:06.530,0:02:09.339
that inequality drives wedges[br]in our politics.

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That means there are good[br]psychological paths

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to improve both at once.

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To understand why inequality[br]is so powerful,

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you have to first understand[br]that we are constantly comparing ourselves

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to other people,

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and when we do that,

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we really like to come out on top,

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and we find it painful[br]to be on the bottom.

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Psychologists call it[br]the "better-than-average effect."

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Most people believe[br]they're better than average

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at just about anything they care about,

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

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(Laughter)

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But that's the way people feel.

0:02:52.208,0:02:54.842
Most people think[br]they're smarter than average,

0:02:54.866,0:02:56.777
harder working than average

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and more socially skilled.

0:02:59.523,0:03:02.176
Most people think they're[br]better drivers than average.

0:03:02.200,0:03:03.698
(Laughter)

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

0:03:06.648,0:03:10.230
currently hospitalized[br]for a car accident that they caused.

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(Laughter)

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

0:03:16.342,0:03:17.754
and if we find out otherwise,

0:03:17.778,0:03:20.636
it's a painful experience[br]that we have to cope with.

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

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To understand how this works,

0:03:27.288,0:03:29.424
my collaborators and I ran an experiment.

0:03:30.805,0:03:35.126
We asked participants to complete[br]a decision-making task to earn some money,

0:03:35.150,0:03:38.105
and in reality, everyone earned[br]the same amount of money.

0:03:39.255,0:03:41.833
But we randomly divided them[br]into two groups,

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

0:03:44.812,0:03:47.870
and we told the other group[br]they had done worse than average.

0:03:47.894,0:03:53.083
So now we have one group that feels richer[br]and one group that feels poorer,

0:03:53.107,0:03:54.753
but for no objective reason.

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And then we asked them some questions.

0:03:57.931,0:04:01.886
When we asked them,[br]"How good are you at making decisions?"

0:04:01.910,0:04:05.069
the better-than-average group[br]said that they were more competent

0:04:05.093,0:04:06.579
than the below-average group.

0:04:08.070,0:04:11.068
The better-than-average group[br]said that their success

0:04:11.092,0:04:13.876
was a fair outcome of a meritocracy.

0:04:14.876,0:04:17.914
The below-average group[br]thought the system was rigged,

0:04:17.938,0:04:20.166
and in this case,[br]of course, they were right.

0:04:20.190,0:04:22.658
(Laughter)

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Even though the two groups[br]had the same amount of money,

0:04:26.837,0:04:31.191
the group that felt richer[br]said we should cut taxes on the wealthy,

0:04:31.215,0:04:33.127
cut benefits to the poor.

0:04:33.151,0:04:36.442
Let them work hard and be[br]responsible for themselves, they said.

0:04:38.537,0:04:43.565
These are attitudes that we normally[br]assume are rooted in deeply held values

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and a lifetime of experience,

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but a 10-minute exercise

0:04:48.499,0:04:51.077
that made people feel richer or poorer

0:04:51.101,0:04:53.301
was enough to change those views.

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

0:05:01.034,0:05:03.281
because the two don't always[br]line up very well.

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You often hear people say with nostalgia,

0:05:06.375,0:05:08.835
"We were poor, but we didn't know it."

0:05:09.988,0:05:12.123
That was the case for me growing up,

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until one day,

0:05:13.441,0:05:15.806
in the fourth-grade lunch line,

0:05:15.830,0:05:18.822
we had a new cashier[br]who didn't know the ropes,

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and she asked me for 1.25 dollars.

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

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

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And suddenly,[br]I realized for the first time

0:05:34.157,0:05:37.484
that we free lunch kids[br]were the poor ones.

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That awkward moment[br]in the school lunch line

0:05:42.355,0:05:44.277
changed so much for me,

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because for the first time, I felt poor.

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

0:05:51.246,0:05:53.410
but for the first time,

0:05:53.434,0:05:55.476
I started noticing things differently.

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It changed the way I saw the world.

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I started noticing how the kids[br]who paid for their lunch

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seemed to dress better[br]than the free lunch kids.

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I started noticing the big yellow blocks[br]of government cheese

0:06:08.098,0:06:09.629
that showed up at our door

0:06:09.653,0:06:12.896
and the food stamps my mother[br]would pull out at the grocery store.

0:06:13.708,0:06:15.217
I was always a shy kid,

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but I hardly talked at all[br]after that at school.

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Who was I to speak up?

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For decades, social scientists[br]looked for evidence

0:06:26.064,0:06:28.640
that feeling deprived[br]compared to other people

0:06:28.664,0:06:30.520
would motivate political action.

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They thought it would mobilize[br]protests, strikes,

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maybe even revolutions.

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

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because the truth is,

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feeling less than other people

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brings shame.

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It makes people turn away,

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disgusted with the system.

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Feeling better than other[br]people, though --

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now that is motivating.

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It motivates us to protect that position,

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and it has important consequences[br]for our politics.

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To see why, consider another experiment.

0:07:07.242,0:07:11.493
Again, we asked participants[br]to make decisions to earn some money,

0:07:11.517,0:07:14.378
and we told one group[br]that they had done better than average

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

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

0:07:21.556,0:07:23.148
cut taxes on the wealthy,

0:07:23.172,0:07:25.494
cut benefits on the poor.

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

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about other participants[br]who disagree with them

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on those issues.

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Are they smart or incompetent?

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Are they reasonable or are they biased?

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

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must be incompetent, biased,

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blinded by self-interest.

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The below-average group

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didn't assume that about their opponents.

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Now, there are lots of psychology studies

0:08:00.187,0:08:02.536
showing that when people agree with us,

0:08:02.560,0:08:03.981
we think they're brilliant,

0:08:04.005,0:08:05.599
and when people disagree with us,

0:08:05.623,0:08:07.352
we tend to think they're idiots.

0:08:07.376,0:08:08.878
(Laughter)

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

0:08:13.237,0:08:15.023
that felt better than average,

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who felt entitled to dismiss[br]those people who disagree with them.

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So think about what[br]this is doing to our politics,

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as the haves and have-nots[br]spread further and further apart.

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

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

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are actually mostly the well-off.

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In fact, as inequality has grown[br]in recent decades,

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political interest and participation[br]among the poor has plummeted.

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Again, we see that people[br]who feel left behind

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

0:09:02.946,0:09:04.527
Often, they aren't even voting.

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Instead, they're turning away[br]and dropping out.

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So if we want to do something[br]about extreme inequality,

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we have to fix our politics.

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And if we want to fix our politics,

0:09:17.609,0:09:20.076
we have to do something about inequality.

0:09:20.100,0:09:21.486
So what do we do?

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The wonderful thing about spirals

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

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I think our best bet starts[br]with those of us

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who have benefited the most[br]from inequality's rise,

0:09:37.613,0:09:40.283
those of us who have done[br]better than average.

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If you've been successful,

0:09:43.317,0:09:46.700
it's natural to chalk up your success[br]to your own hard work.

0:09:47.625,0:09:49.378
But, like the studies I showed you,

0:09:49.402,0:09:51.148
everybody does that,

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

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Every successful person I know

0:10:00.802,0:10:05.208
can think of times when they worked hard[br]and struggled to succeed.

0:10:06.113,0:10:08.175
They can also think of times

0:10:08.199,0:10:11.641
when they benefited from good luck[br]or a helping hand

0:10:11.665,0:10:13.218
but that part is harder.

0:10:13.772,0:10:16.385
Psychologists Shai Davidai[br]and Tom Gilovich

0:10:16.409,0:10:19.712
call it the "headwind-tailwind asymmetry."

0:10:20.380,0:10:22.723
When you're struggling against headwinds,

0:10:22.747,0:10:24.948
those obstacles are all you can see.

0:10:25.384,0:10:27.728
It's what you notice and remember.

0:10:28.377,0:10:31.510
But when the wind's at your back[br]and everything's going your way,

0:10:31.534,0:10:33.824
all you notice is yourself

0:10:33.848,0:10:36.205
and our own amazing talents.

0:10:36.229,0:10:39.768
So we have to stop and think for a minute

0:10:39.792,0:10:43.119
to recognize those tailwinds[br]helping us along.

0:10:45.122,0:10:47.196
It's so easy to see[br]what's wrong with people

0:10:47.220,0:10:48.509
who disagree with you.

0:10:49.139,0:10:52.185
Some of you decided that I was an idiot[br]in the first two minutes,

0:10:52.209,0:10:54.189
because I said inequality was harmful.

0:10:54.213,0:10:55.440
(Laughter)

0:10:56.182,0:10:58.879
The hard part is to recognize

0:10:58.903,0:11:00.870
that if you were in a different position,

0:11:00.894,0:11:02.570
you might see things differently,

0:11:02.594,0:11:05.194
just like the subjects in our experiments.

0:11:07.144,0:11:10.046
So if you're in the above-average[br]group in life --

0:11:10.070,0:11:12.790
and if you're watching a TED talk,[br]you most likely are --

0:11:12.814,0:11:14.057
(Laughter)

0:11:14.081,0:11:15.914
then I leave you with this challenge:

0:11:17.975,0:11:21.446
the next time you're tempted to dismiss[br]someone who disagrees with you

0:11:21.470,0:11:22.915
as an idiot,

0:11:22.939,0:11:26.371
think about the tailwinds[br]that helped you get where you are.

0:11:27.186,0:11:28.864
What lucky breaks did you get

0:11:28.888,0:11:31.047
that might have turned out differently?

0:11:31.071,0:11:33.841
What helping hands are you grateful for?

0:11:34.824,0:11:37.885
Recognizing those tailwinds[br]gives us the humility we need

0:11:37.909,0:11:41.545
to see that disagreeing with us[br]doesn't make people idiots.

0:11:42.299,0:11:45.015
The real hard work[br]is in finding common ground,

0:11:45.039,0:11:47.631
because it's the well-off[br]who have the power

0:11:47.655,0:11:50.827
and the responsibility to change things.

0:11:50.851,0:11:52.087
Thank you.

0:11:52.111,0:11:55.389
(Applause)