1
00:00:00,793 --> 00:00:02,967
I want you to, for a moment,

2
00:00:02,967 --> 00:00:06,817
think about playing a game of Monopoly,

3
00:00:06,817 --> 00:00:09,224
except in this game, that combination

4
00:00:09,224 --> 00:00:12,393
of skill, talent, and luck

5
00:00:12,393 --> 00:00:14,901
that helped earn you success in games, as in life,

6
00:00:14,901 --> 00:00:16,347
has been rendered irrelevant,

7
00:00:16,347 --> 00:00:18,642
because this game's been rigged,

8
00:00:18,642 --> 00:00:20,522
and you've got the upper hand.

9
00:00:20,522 --> 00:00:22,401
You've got more money,

10
00:00:22,401 --> 00:00:24,961
more opportunities to move around the board,

11
00:00:24,961 --> 00:00:27,186
and more access to resources.

12
00:00:27,186 --> 00:00:28,517
And as you think about that experience,

13
00:00:28,517 --> 00:00:31,105
I want you to ask yourself,

14
00:00:31,105 --> 00:00:32,875
how might that experience of being

15
00:00:32,875 --> 00:00:36,005
a privileged player in a rigged game

16
00:00:36,005 --> 00:00:38,928
change the way that you think about yourself

17
00:00:38,928 --> 00:00:42,786
and regard that other player?

18
00:00:42,786 --> 00:00:45,833
So we ran a study on the UC-Berkeley campus

19
00:00:45,833 --> 00:00:48,135
to look at exactly that question.

20
00:00:48,135 --> 00:00:49,793
We brought in more than a hundred pairs

21
00:00:49,793 --> 00:00:52,554
of strangers into the lab,

22
00:00:52,554 --> 00:00:54,374
and with the flip of a coin

23
00:00:54,374 --> 00:00:56,161
randomly assigned one of the two

24
00:00:56,161 --> 00:00:58,506
to be a rich player in a rigged game.

25
00:00:58,506 --> 00:01:01,327
They got two times as much money.

26
00:01:01,327 --> 00:01:02,828
When they passed go,

27
00:01:02,828 --> 00:01:05,034
they collected twice the salary,

28
00:01:05,034 --> 00:01:07,007
and they got to roll both dice instead of one,

29
00:01:07,007 --> 00:01:08,818
so they got to move around the board a lot more.

30
00:01:08,818 --> 00:01:11,824
(Laughter)

31
00:01:11,824 --> 00:01:13,537
And over the course of 15 minutes,

32
00:01:13,537 --> 00:01:17,067
we watched through hidden
cameras what happened.

33
00:01:17,067 --> 00:01:18,888
And what I want to do today, for the first time,

34
00:01:18,888 --> 00:01:21,400
is show you a little bit of what we saw.

35
00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:22,909
You're going to have to pardon the sound quality,

36
00:01:22,909 --> 00:01:24,073
in some cases, because again,

37
00:01:24,073 --> 00:01:25,580
these were hidden cameras.

38
00:01:25,580 --> 00:01:27,775
So we've provided subtitles.

39
00:01:27,775 --> 00:01:29,565
Rich Player: How many 500s did you have?

40
00:01:29,565 --> 00:01:30,400
Poor Player: Just one.

41
00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:31,517
Rich Player: Are you serious.
Poor Player: Yeah.

42
00:01:31,517 --> 00:01:33,270
Rich Player: I have three. (Laughs)

43
00:01:33,270 --> 00:01:35,196
I don't know why they gave me so much.

44
00:01:35,196 --> 00:01:36,819
Paul Piff: Okay, so it was quickly apparent to players

45
00:01:36,819 --> 00:01:38,376
that something was up.

46
00:01:38,376 --> 00:01:40,671
One person clearly has a lot more money

47
00:01:40,671 --> 00:01:42,820
than the other person, and yet,

48
00:01:42,820 --> 00:01:44,962
as the game unfolded,

49
00:01:44,962 --> 00:01:46,967
we saw very notable differences

50
00:01:46,967 --> 00:01:49,416
and dramatic differences begin to emerge

51
00:01:49,416 --> 00:01:51,290
between the two players.

52
00:01:51,290 --> 00:01:53,010
The rich player

53
00:01:53,010 --> 00:01:55,588
started to move around the board louder,

54
00:01:55,588 --> 00:01:57,469
literally smacking the board with their piece

55
00:01:57,469 --> 00:02:00,389
as he went around.

56
00:02:00,389 --> 00:02:03,382
We were more likely to see signs of dominance

57
00:02:03,382 --> 00:02:05,296
and non-verbal signs of display,

58
00:02:05,296 --> 00:02:07,394
displays of power

59
00:02:07,394 --> 00:02:11,349
and celebration among the rich players.

60
00:02:11,349 --> 00:02:13,870
All right. We had a bowl of pretzels
positioned off to the side.

61
00:02:13,870 --> 00:02:15,531
It's on the bottom right corner there.

62
00:02:15,531 --> 00:02:19,018
That allowed us to watch
participants' consummatory behavior.

63
00:02:19,018 --> 00:02:23,636
So we're just tracking how
many pretzels participants eat.

64
00:02:23,636 --> 00:02:25,569
Rich Player: Are those pretzels a trick?

65
00:02:25,569 --> 00:02:27,495
Poor Player: I don't know.

66
00:02:27,495 --> 00:02:30,634
PP: Okay, so no surprises, people are onto us.

67
00:02:30,634 --> 00:02:32,139
They wonder what that bowl of pretzels

68
00:02:32,139 --> 00:02:33,920
is doing there in the first place.

69
00:02:33,920 --> 00:02:35,834
One even asks, like you just saw,

70
00:02:35,834 --> 00:02:38,793
is that bowl of pretzels there as a trick?

71
00:02:38,793 --> 00:02:41,703
And yet, despite that, the power of the situation

72
00:02:41,703 --> 00:02:44,004
seems to inevitably dominate,

73
00:02:44,004 --> 00:02:48,457
and those rich players start to eat more pretzels.

74
00:02:51,976 --> 00:02:54,073
Rich Player: I love pretzels.

75
00:02:54,073 --> 00:02:56,402
(Laughter)

76
00:02:57,988 --> 00:03:00,118
PP: And as the game went on,

77
00:03:00,118 --> 00:03:02,450
one of the really interesting and dramatic patterns

78
00:03:02,450 --> 00:03:06,108
that we observed begin to emerge

79
00:03:06,108 --> 00:03:07,394
was that the rich players actually

80
00:03:07,394 --> 00:03:10,978
started to become ruder toward the other person,

81
00:03:10,978 --> 00:03:12,387
less and less sensitive to the plight

82
00:03:12,387 --> 00:03:14,431
of those poor, poor players,

83
00:03:14,431 --> 00:03:16,502
and more and more demonstrative

84
00:03:16,502 --> 00:03:18,971
of their material success,

85
00:03:18,971 --> 00:03:22,177
more likely to showcase how well they're doing.

86
00:03:23,589 --> 00:03:27,699
Rich Player: I have money for everything.

87
00:03:27,699 --> 00:03:29,317
Poor Player: How much is that?

88
00:03:29,317 --> 00:03:33,279
Rich Player: You owe me... 24 dollars.

89
00:03:33,279 --> 00:03:36,135
You're going to lose all your money soon.

90
00:03:36,135 --> 00:03:38,295
I'll buy it! I have so much money.

91
00:03:38,295 --> 00:03:40,241
I have so much money, it takes me for ever.

92
00:03:40,241 --> 00:03:42,201
Rich Player 2: I'm going to buy out this whole board.

93
00:03:42,201 --> 00:03:43,931
Rich Player 3: You're going
to run out of money soon.

94
00:03:43,931 --> 00:03:46,779
I'm pretty much untouchable at this point.

95
00:03:46,779 --> 00:03:49,095
PP: Okay, and here's what I think

96
00:03:49,095 --> 00:03:50,843
was really, really interesting,

97
00:03:50,843 --> 00:03:54,097
is that at the end of the 15 minutes,

98
00:03:54,097 --> 00:03:58,490
we asked the players to talk about
their experience during the game.

99
00:03:58,490 --> 00:04:00,565
And when the rich players talked about

100
00:04:00,565 --> 00:04:02,447
why they had inevitably won

101
00:04:02,447 --> 00:04:04,466
in this rigged game of Monopoly

102
00:04:04,466 --> 00:04:09,275
—(Laughter)—

103
00:04:09,275 --> 00:04:12,839
they talked about what they'd done

104
00:04:12,839 --> 00:04:15,653
to buy those different properties

105
00:04:15,653 --> 00:04:18,435
and earn their success in the game,

106
00:04:18,435 --> 00:04:20,924
and they became far less attuned

107
00:04:20,924 --> 00:04:23,639
to all those different features of the situation,

108
00:04:23,639 --> 00:04:26,312
including that flip of a coin

109
00:04:26,312 --> 00:04:28,489
that had randomly gotten them into

110
00:04:28,489 --> 00:04:31,616
that privileged position in the first place.

111
00:04:31,616 --> 00:04:34,454
And that's a really, really incredible insight

112
00:04:34,454 --> 00:04:39,909
into how the mind makes sense of advantage.

113
00:04:39,909 --> 00:04:42,130
Now this game of Monopoly can be used

114
00:04:42,130 --> 00:04:44,973
as a metaphor for understanding society

115
00:04:44,973 --> 00:04:48,258
and its hierarchical structure, wherein some people

116
00:04:48,258 --> 00:04:50,650
have a lot of wealth and a lot of status,

117
00:04:50,650 --> 00:04:52,127
and a lot of people don't.

118
00:04:52,127 --> 00:04:55,060
They have a lot less wealth and a lot less status

119
00:04:55,060 --> 00:04:58,174
and a lot less access to valued resources.

120
00:04:58,174 --> 00:05:01,410
And what my colleagues and I for
the last seven years have been doing

121
00:05:01,410 --> 00:05:05,479
is studying the effects of these kinds of hierarchies.

122
00:05:05,479 --> 00:05:08,763
What we've been finding across dozens of studies

123
00:05:08,763 --> 00:05:12,180
and thousands of participants across this country

124
00:05:12,180 --> 00:05:16,712
is that as a person's levels of wealth increase,

125
00:05:16,712 --> 00:05:22,780
their feelings of compassion and empathy go down,

126
00:05:22,780 --> 00:05:26,551
and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness,

127
00:05:26,551 --> 00:05:31,099
and their ideology of self-interest increases.

128
00:05:31,099 --> 00:05:33,158
In surveys, we found that it's actually

129
00:05:33,158 --> 00:05:35,035
wealthier individuals who are more likely

130
00:05:35,035 --> 00:05:38,075
to moralize greed being good,

131
00:05:38,075 --> 00:05:40,078
and that the pursuit of self-interest

132
00:05:40,078 --> 00:05:42,794
is favorable and moral.

133
00:05:42,794 --> 00:05:44,643
Now what I want to do today is talk about

134
00:05:44,643 --> 00:05:49,464
some of the implications
of this ideology self-interest,

135
00:05:49,464 --> 00:05:51,827
talk about why we should
care about those implications,

136
00:05:51,827 --> 00:05:55,469
and end with what might be done.

137
00:05:55,469 --> 00:05:57,634
Some of the first studies that we ran in this area

138
00:05:57,634 --> 00:05:58,920
looked at helping behavior,

139
00:05:58,920 --> 00:06:01,079
something social psychologists call

140
00:06:01,079 --> 00:06:03,170
pro-social behavior.

141
00:06:03,170 --> 00:06:05,622
And we were really interested in who's more likely

142
00:06:05,622 --> 00:06:08,231
to offer help to another person,

143
00:06:08,231 --> 00:06:11,388
someone who's rich or someone who's poor.

144
00:06:11,388 --> 00:06:15,790
In one of the studies, we bring in rich and poor

145
00:06:15,790 --> 00:06:18,090
members of the community into the lab

146
00:06:18,090 --> 00:06:21,584
and give each of them the equivalent of 10 dollars.

147
00:06:21,584 --> 00:06:23,194
We told the participants

148
00:06:23,194 --> 00:06:25,642
that they could keep these 10 dollars for themselves,

149
00:06:25,642 --> 00:06:27,617
or they could share a portion of it,

150
00:06:27,617 --> 00:06:29,612
if they wanted to, with a stranger

151
00:06:29,612 --> 00:06:31,083
who is totally anonymous.

152
00:06:31,083 --> 00:06:34,119
They'll never meet that stranger and
the stranger will never meet them.

153
00:06:34,119 --> 00:06:37,337
And we just monitor how much people give.

154
00:06:37,337 --> 00:06:39,687
Individuals who made 25, sometimes

155
00:06:39,687 --> 00:06:42,014
under 15,000 dollars a year,

156
00:06:42,014 --> 00:06:44,241
gave 44 percent more of their money

157
00:06:44,241 --> 00:06:45,324
to this stranger

158
00:06:45,324 --> 00:06:47,632
than did individuals making 150,

159
00:06:47,632 --> 00:06:50,879
200,000 dollars a year.

160
00:06:50,879 --> 00:06:53,627
We've had people play games

161
00:06:53,627 --> 00:06:56,258
to see who's more or less likely to cheat

162
00:06:56,258 --> 00:06:58,652
to increase their chances of winning a prize.

163
00:06:58,652 --> 00:07:01,372
In one of the games, we actually rigged a computer

164
00:07:01,372 --> 00:07:04,164
so that die rolls over a certain score

165
00:07:04,164 --> 00:07:05,150
were impossible.

166
00:07:05,150 --> 00:07:08,242
You couldn't get above 12 in this game,

167
00:07:08,242 --> 00:07:11,354
and yet, the richer you were,

168
00:07:11,354 --> 00:07:13,111
the more likely you were to cheat in this game

169
00:07:13,111 --> 00:07:17,010
to earn credits toward a $50 cash prize,

170
00:07:17,010 --> 00:07:20,855
sometimes by three to four times as much.

171
00:07:20,855 --> 00:07:23,088
We ran another study where we looked at whether

172
00:07:23,088 --> 00:07:26,311
people would be inclined to take candy

173
00:07:26,311 --> 00:07:28,802
from a jar of candy that we explicitly identified

174
00:07:28,802 --> 00:07:31,042
as being reserved for children

175
00:07:31,042 --> 00:07:34,484
—(Laughter)—

176
00:07:34,484 --> 00:07:36,325
participating, I'm not kidding,

177
00:07:36,325 --> 00:07:39,054
I know it sounds like I'm making a joke,

178
00:07:39,054 --> 00:07:41,295
we explicitly told participants

179
00:07:41,295 --> 00:07:43,164
this jar of candy's for children participating

180
00:07:43,164 --> 00:07:45,648
in a developmental lab nearby.

181
00:07:45,648 --> 00:07:47,698
They're in studies. This is for them.

182
00:07:47,698 --> 00:07:51,341
And we just monitored how
much candy participants took.

183
00:07:51,341 --> 00:07:52,854
Participants who felt rich

184
00:07:52,854 --> 00:07:54,259
took two times as much candy

185
00:07:54,259 --> 00:07:57,408
as participants who felt poor.

186
00:07:57,408 --> 00:08:00,061
We've even studied cars,

187
00:08:00,061 --> 00:08:01,923
not just any cars,

188
00:08:01,923 --> 00:08:04,994
but whether drivers of different kinds of cars

189
00:08:04,994 --> 00:08:08,097
are more or less inclined to break the law.

190
00:08:08,097 --> 00:08:10,934
In one of these studies, we looked at

191
00:08:10,934 --> 00:08:15,090
whether drivers would stop for a pedestrian

192
00:08:15,090 --> 00:08:17,989
that we had posed waiting to cross at a crosswalk.

193
00:08:17,989 --> 00:08:19,733
Now in California, as you all know,

194
00:08:19,733 --> 00:08:22,257
because I'm sure we all do this,

195
00:08:22,257 --> 00:08:26,185
it's the law to stop for a pedestrian
who's waiting to cross.

196
00:08:26,185 --> 00:08:28,117
So here's an example of how we did it.

197
00:08:28,117 --> 00:08:30,418
That's our confederate off to the left

198
00:08:30,418 --> 00:08:31,499
posing as a pedestrian.

199
00:08:31,499 --> 00:08:36,073
He approaches as the red truck successfully stops.

200
00:08:36,073 --> 00:08:38,391
In typical California fashion, it's overtaken

201
00:08:38,391 --> 00:08:40,728
by the bus who almost runs our pedestrian over.

202
00:08:40,728 --> 00:08:42,284
(Laughter)

203
00:08:42,284 --> 00:08:44,151
Now here's an example of a more expensive car,

204
00:08:44,151 --> 00:08:45,889
a Prius, driving through,

205
00:08:45,889 --> 00:08:50,197
and a BMW doing the same.

206
00:08:51,388 --> 00:08:53,887
So we did this for hundreds of vehicles

207
00:08:53,887 --> 00:08:56,243
on several days,

208
00:08:56,243 --> 00:08:59,195
just tracking who stops and who doesn't.

209
00:09:00,466 --> 00:09:02,660
What we found was that as the expensiveness

210
00:09:02,660 --> 00:09:06,960
of a car increased,

211
00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:08,844
the driver's tendencies to break the law

212
00:09:08,844 --> 00:09:10,088
increased as well.

213
00:09:10,088 --> 00:09:12,780
None of the cars, none of the cars

214
00:09:12,780 --> 00:09:16,080
in our least expensive car category

215
00:09:16,080 --> 00:09:17,645
broke the law.

216
00:09:17,645 --> 00:09:20,038
Close to 50 percent of the cars

217
00:09:20,038 --> 00:09:22,446
in our most expensive vehicle category

218
00:09:22,446 --> 00:09:25,289
broke the law.

219
00:09:25,289 --> 00:09:27,182
We've run other studies finding that

220
00:09:27,182 --> 00:09:30,518
wealthier individuals are more
likely to lie in negotiations,

221
00:09:30,518 --> 00:09:32,639
to endorse unethical behavior at work

222
00:09:32,639 --> 00:09:35,431
like stealing cash from the cash register,

223
00:09:35,431 --> 00:09:40,514
taking bribes, lying to customers.

224
00:09:40,514 --> 00:09:42,076
Now I don't mean to suggest

225
00:09:42,076 --> 00:09:43,779
that it's only wealthy people

226
00:09:43,779 --> 00:09:45,691
who show these patterns of behavior.

227
00:09:45,691 --> 00:09:48,460
Not at all. In fact, I think that we all,

228
00:09:48,460 --> 00:09:51,424
in our day-to-day, minute-by-minute lives,

229
00:09:51,424 --> 00:09:54,396
struggle with these competing motivations

230
00:09:54,396 --> 00:09:57,693
of when, or if, to put our own interests

231
00:09:57,693 --> 00:10:00,047
above the interests of other people.

232
00:10:00,047 --> 00:10:02,429
And that's understandable because

233
00:10:02,429 --> 00:10:04,992
the American dream is an idea

234
00:10:04,992 --> 00:10:08,091
in which we all have an equal opportunity

235
00:10:08,091 --> 00:10:10,125
to succeed and prosper,

236
00:10:10,125 --> 00:10:12,682
as long as we apply ourselves and work hard,

237
00:10:12,682 --> 00:10:15,386
and a piece of that means that sometimes,

238
00:10:15,386 --> 00:10:18,485
you need to put your own interests

239
00:10:18,485 --> 00:10:21,915
above the interests and well-being
of other people around you.

240
00:10:21,915 --> 00:10:24,084
But what we're finding is that,

241
00:10:24,084 --> 00:10:26,492
the wealthier you are, the more likely you are

242
00:10:26,492 --> 00:10:29,207
to pursue a vision of personal success,

243
00:10:29,207 --> 00:10:31,442
of achievement and accomplishment,

244
00:10:31,442 --> 00:10:34,790
to the detriment of others around you.

245
00:10:34,790 --> 00:10:37,554
Here I've plotted for you the mean household income

246
00:10:37,554 --> 00:10:41,170
received by each fifth and top
five percent of the population

247
00:10:41,170 --> 00:10:43,340
over the last 20 years.

248
00:10:43,340 --> 00:10:45,882
In 1993, the differences between the different

249
00:10:45,882 --> 00:10:48,967
quintiles of the population, in terms of income,

250
00:10:48,967 --> 00:10:51,564
are fairly egregious.

251
00:10:51,564 --> 00:10:54,161
It's not difficult to discern that there are differences.

252
00:10:54,161 --> 00:10:57,045
But over the last 20 years, that significant difference

253
00:10:57,045 --> 00:10:59,219
has become a grand canyon of sorts

254
00:10:59,219 --> 00:11:02,373
between those at the top and everyone else.

255
00:11:02,373 --> 00:11:06,065
In fact, the top 20 percent of our population

256
00:11:06,065 --> 00:11:09,143
own close to 90 percent of the
total wealth in this country.

257
00:11:09,143 --> 00:11:11,402
We're at unprecedented levels

258
00:11:11,402 --> 00:11:13,890
of economic inequality.

259
00:11:15,634 --> 00:11:17,970
What that means is that wealth is not only becoming

260
00:11:17,970 --> 00:11:22,450
increasingly concentrated in the hands
of a select group of individuals,

261
00:11:22,450 --> 00:11:24,834
but the American dream is becoming

262
00:11:24,834 --> 00:11:26,782
increasingly unattainable

263
00:11:26,782 --> 00:11:29,975
for an increasing majority of us.

264
00:11:29,975 --> 00:11:32,242
And if it's the case, as we've been finding,

265
00:11:32,242 --> 00:11:34,237
that the wealthier you are,

266
00:11:34,237 --> 00:11:36,779
the more entitled you feel to that wealth,

267
00:11:36,779 --> 00:11:39,772
and the more likely you are
to prioritize your own interests

268
00:11:39,772 --> 00:11:41,739
above the interests of other people,

269
00:11:41,739 --> 00:11:45,129
and be willing to do things to serve that self-interest,

270
00:11:45,129 --> 00:11:46,863
well then there's no reason to think

271
00:11:46,863 --> 00:11:48,961
that those patterns will change.

272
00:11:48,961 --> 00:11:50,504
In fact, there's every reason to think

273
00:11:50,504 --> 00:11:52,487
that they'll only get worse,

274
00:11:52,487 --> 00:11:53,396
and that's what it would look like

275
00:11:53,396 --> 00:11:55,321
if things just stayed the same,

276
00:11:55,321 --> 00:11:59,961
at the same linear rate, over the next 20 years.

277
00:11:59,961 --> 00:12:02,682
Now, inequality, economic inequality,

278
00:12:02,682 --> 00:12:04,606
is something we should all be concerned about,

279
00:12:04,606 --> 00:12:07,135
and not just because of those at the bottom

280
00:12:07,135 --> 00:12:08,649
of the social hierarchy,

281
00:12:08,649 --> 00:12:10,889
but because individuals and groups

282
00:12:10,889 --> 00:12:16,089
with lots of economic inequality do worse,

283
00:12:16,089 --> 00:12:18,928
not just the people at the bottom, everyone.

284
00:12:18,928 --> 00:12:20,794
There's a lot of really compelling research

285
00:12:20,794 --> 00:12:23,647
coming out from top labs all over the world

286
00:12:23,647 --> 00:12:26,535
showcasing the range of things

287
00:12:26,535 --> 00:12:28,424
that are undermined

288
00:12:28,424 --> 00:12:31,064
as economic inequality gets worse.

289
00:12:31,064 --> 00:12:33,717
Social mobility, things we really care about,

290
00:12:33,717 --> 00:12:36,198
physical health, social trust,

291
00:12:36,198 --> 00:12:39,243
all go down as inequality goes up.

292
00:12:39,243 --> 00:12:41,258
Similarly, negative things

293
00:12:41,258 --> 00:12:43,870
in social collectives and societies,

294
00:12:43,870 --> 00:12:45,964
things like obesity, and violence,

295
00:12:45,964 --> 00:12:47,585
imprisonment, and punishment,

296
00:12:47,585 --> 00:12:51,727
are exacerbated as economic inequality increases.

297
00:12:51,727 --> 00:12:54,137
Again, these our outcomes not just experienced

298
00:12:54,137 --> 00:12:56,015
by a few, but that resound

299
00:12:56,015 --> 00:12:58,799
across all strata of society.

300
00:12:58,799 --> 00:13:01,915
Even people at the top experience these outcomes.

301
00:13:01,915 --> 00:13:05,158
So what do we do?

302
00:13:05,158 --> 00:13:08,629
This cascade of self-perpetuating,

303
00:13:08,629 --> 00:13:11,137
pernicious, negative effects

304
00:13:11,137 --> 00:13:14,546
could seem like something that's spun out of control,

305
00:13:14,546 --> 00:13:16,464
and there's nothing we can do about it,

306
00:13:16,464 --> 00:13:19,260
certainly nothing we as individuals could do.

307
00:13:19,260 --> 00:13:23,093
But in fact, we've been finding

308
00:13:23,093 --> 00:13:26,281
in our own laboratory research

309
00:13:26,281 --> 00:13:31,371
that small, small psychological interventions,

310
00:13:31,371 --> 00:13:34,680
small changes to people's values,

311
00:13:34,680 --> 00:13:37,903
small nudges in certain directions,

312
00:13:37,903 --> 00:13:41,468
can restore levels of egalitarianism and empathy.

313
00:13:41,468 --> 00:13:43,520
For instance, reminding people

314
00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:45,776
of the benefits of cooperation,

315
00:13:45,776 --> 00:13:48,680
or the advantages of community,

316
00:13:48,680 --> 00:13:52,615
cause wealthier individuals to be just as egalitarian

317
00:13:52,615 --> 00:13:55,150
as poor people.

318
00:13:55,150 --> 00:13:58,527
In one study, we had people watch a brief video,

319
00:13:58,527 --> 00:14:02,888
just 46 seconds long, about childhood poverty

320
00:14:02,888 --> 00:14:05,938
that served as a reminder of the needs of others

321
00:14:05,938 --> 00:14:07,964
in the world around them,

322
00:14:07,964 --> 00:14:09,994
and after watching that,

323
00:14:09,994 --> 00:14:11,692
we looked at how willing people were

324
00:14:11,692 --> 00:14:15,396
to offer up their own time to a stranger

325
00:14:15,396 --> 00:14:18,815
presented to them in the lab who was in distress.

326
00:14:18,815 --> 00:14:22,082
After watching this video, an hour later,

327
00:14:22,082 --> 00:14:24,452
rich people became just as generous

328
00:14:24,452 --> 00:14:26,411
of their own time to help out this other person,

329
00:14:26,411 --> 00:14:29,116
a stranger, as someone who's poor,

330
00:14:29,116 --> 00:14:31,567
suggesting that these differences are not

331
00:14:31,567 --> 00:14:33,450
innate or categorical,

332
00:14:33,450 --> 00:14:35,174
but are so malleable

333
00:14:35,174 --> 00:14:37,100
to slight changes in people's values,

334
00:14:37,100 --> 00:14:39,381
and little nudges of compassion

335
00:14:39,381 --> 00:14:41,036
and bumps of empathy.

336
00:14:41,036 --> 00:14:42,654
And beyond the walls of our lab, we're even

337
00:14:42,654 --> 00:14:46,622
beginning to see signs of change in society.

338
00:14:46,622 --> 00:14:50,065
Bill Gates, one of our nation's wealthiest individuals,

339
00:14:50,065 --> 00:14:51,810
in his Harvard commencement speech,

340
00:14:51,810 --> 00:14:53,934
talked about the problem facing society

341
00:14:53,934 --> 00:14:57,284
of inequality as being the most daunting challenge,

342
00:14:57,284 --> 00:14:59,880
and talked about what must be done to combat it,

343
00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:03,115
saying, "Humanity's greatest advances

344
00:15:03,115 --> 00:15:05,066
are not in its discoveries,

345
00:15:05,066 --> 00:15:08,217
but in how those discoveries are applied

346
00:15:08,217 --> 00:15:11,031
to reduce inequity."

347
00:15:11,031 --> 00:15:13,034
And there's the Giving Pledge,

348
00:15:13,034 --> 00:15:15,456
in which more than a hundred of our nation's

349
00:15:15,456 --> 00:15:17,843
wealthiest individuals

350
00:15:17,843 --> 00:15:21,757
are pledging half of their fortunes to charity.

351
00:15:21,757 --> 00:15:23,381
And there's the emergence

352
00:15:23,381 --> 00:15:27,014
of dozens of grassroots movements,

353
00:15:27,014 --> 00:15:29,317
like We Are The One Percent,

354
00:15:29,317 --> 00:15:31,181
the Resource Generation,

355
00:15:31,181 --> 00:15:33,302
or Wealth For Common Good,

356
00:15:33,302 --> 00:15:35,869
in which the most privileged

357
00:15:35,869 --> 00:15:37,694
members of the population,

358
00:15:37,694 --> 00:15:40,450
members of the one percent and elsewhere,

359
00:15:40,450 --> 00:15:42,381
people who are wealthy,

360
00:15:42,381 --> 00:15:45,969
are using their own economic resources,

361
00:15:45,969 --> 00:15:50,229
adults and youth alike, that's
what's most striking to me,

362
00:15:50,229 --> 00:15:51,647
leveraging their own privilege,

363
00:15:51,647 --> 00:15:53,718
their own economic resources,

364
00:15:53,718 --> 00:15:56,745
to combat inequality

365
00:15:56,745 --> 00:15:59,655
by advocating for social policies,

366
00:15:59,655 --> 00:16:01,536
changes in social values,

367
00:16:01,536 --> 00:16:03,910
and changes in people's behavior,

368
00:16:03,910 --> 00:16:06,973
that work against their own economic interests

369
00:16:06,973 --> 00:16:11,246
but that may ultimately restore the American dream.

370
00:16:11,246 --> 00:16:13,246
Thank you.

371
00:16:13,246 --> 00:16:17,246
(Applause)