The psychology of inequality and political division

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.

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.

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 poorer 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 for 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,

that 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.