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You've probably heard by now
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that economic inequality
is historically high,
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that the wealthiest one tenth
of one percent in the United States
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have as much wealth
as the bottom 90 percent combined,
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or that the wealthiest
eight individuals in the world
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have as much wealth
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as the poorest 3.5 billion
inhabitants of the planet.
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Did you know that economic inequality
is associated with shorter lifespans,
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less happiness, more crime
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and more drug abuse?
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Those sound like problems of poverty,
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but among wealthy, developed nations
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those health and social problems
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are actually more tightly linked
to inequality between incomes
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than to absolute incomes.
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And because of that,
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the United States,
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the wealthiest and
the most unequal of nations,
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actually fares worse
than all other developed countries.
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Surveys show that
large majorities of Americans,
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both Democrats and Republicans,
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believe inequality is too high
and want more equal pay,
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and yet as a society we don't seem
to be able to find the common ground,
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the consensus, the political will
to do anything about it.
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Because, as inequality
has risen in recent decades,
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political polarization
has risen along with it.
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We see those who disagree with us
as idiots or as immoral.
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Nearly half of Democrats and Republicans
now think that the other side
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is not just mistaken,
but a threat to the nation,
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and that animosity
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prevents us from finding
the common ground to change things.
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I'm a social psychology professor
at the University of North Carolina,
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and I study the effects of inequality
on people's thinking and behavior.
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I'm going to argue that it's not just
an unfortunate coincidence
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that inequality and political division
have risen together.
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There are good psychological reasons
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that inequality drives wedges
in our politics.
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That means there are good
psychological paths
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to improve both at once.
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To understand why inequality
is so powerful,
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you have to first understand
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
to be on the bottom.
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Psychologists call it
the "better than average effect."
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Most people believe
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,
because that's just what average means.
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(Laughter)
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But that's the way people feel.
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Most people think
they're smarter than average,
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harder working than average,
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and more socially skilled.
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Most people think they're
better drivers than average.
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(Laughter)
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That's true even if you do
the study with a sample of people
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currently hospitalized
for a car accident that they caused.
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(Laughter)
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So we really want to see ourselves
as better than average,
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and if we find out otherwise
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it's a painful experience
that we have to cope with.
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And we cope with it
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by shifting how we see the world.
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To understand how this works,
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my collaborators and I ran an experiment.
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We asked participants to complete
a decision-making task to earn some money,
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and in reality everyone earned
the same amount of money.
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But we randomly divided them
into two groups,
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and we told one group
that they had done better than average,
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and we told the other group
they had done worse than average.
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So now we have one group that feels richer
and one group that feels poorer,
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but for no objective reason.
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And then we asked them some questions.
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When we asked them,
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"How good are you at making decisions?"
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the better than average group
said that they were more competent
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than the below average group.
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The better than average group
said that their success
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was a fair outcome of a meritocracy.
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The below average group
thought the system was rigged,
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and in this case,
of course, they were right.
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(Laughter)
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Even though the two groups
had the same amount of money,
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the group that felt richer
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said we should cut taxes on the wealthy,
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cut benefits to the poor.
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Let them work hard and be
responsible for themselves, they said.
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These are attitudes that we normally
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
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that made people feel richer or poorer
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was enough to change those views.
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This difference between being rich or poor
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and feeling rich or poor is important,
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because the two don't always
line up very well.
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You often hear people say with nostalgia,
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"We were poor but we didn't know it."
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That was the case for me growing up,
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until one day,
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in the fourth grade lunch line,
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we had a new cashier
who didn't know the ropes
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and she asked me for $1.25.
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I was taken aback because I had never
been asked to pay for my lunch before.
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I didn't know what to say
because I didn't have any money.
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And suddenly I realized for the first time
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that we free lunch kids
were the poorer ones.
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That awkward moment
in the school lunch line
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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
than the day before,
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but for the first time,
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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
who paid for their lunch
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seemed to dress better
than the free lunch kids.
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I started noticing the big yellow blocks
of government cheese
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that showed up at our door,
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and the food stamps my mother
would pull out at the grocery store.
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I was always a shy kid,
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but I hardly talked at all
after that at school.
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Who was I to speak up?
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For decades, social scientists
looked for evidence
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that feeling deprived
compared to other people
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would motivate political action.
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They thought it would mobilize protests,
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strikes,
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maybe even revolutions,
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but again and again what they found
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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 people, though,
now that is motivating.
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It motivates us to protect that position,
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and it has important consequences
for our politics.
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To see why, consider another experiment.
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Again, we asked participants
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to make decisions to earn some money,
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and we told one group
that they had done better than average
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and the other group that they
had done worse than average.
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And again, the better than average group
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said it's a fair meritocracy,
cut taxes on the wealthy,
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cut benefits for the poor.
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But this time, we also asked them
what did they think
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about other participants
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
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
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showing that when people agree with us,
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we think they're brilliant,
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and when people disagree with us,
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we tend to think they're idiots.
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(Laughter)
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But this is new because we found
it was driven entirely by the group
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that felt better than average,
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that felt entitled to dismiss
those people who disagree with them.
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So think about what this
is doing to our politics,
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as the haves and have-nots
spread further and further apart.
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Yes, a lot of us think
that people on the other side are idiots,
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but the people politically engaged enough
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
in recent decades,
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political interest and participation
among the poor has plummeted.
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Again, we see that people
who feel left behind
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aren't taking to the streets to protest
or organize voter registration drives.
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Often, they aren't even voting.
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Instead, they're turning away
and dropping out.
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So if we want to do something
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,
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we have to do something about inequality.
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So what do we do?
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The wonderful thing about spirals
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is that you can interrupt
at any point in the cycle.
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I think our best bet starts
with those of us
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who have benefited the most
from inequality's rise,
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those of us who have done
better than average.
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If you've been successful, it's natural
to chalk up your success
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to your own hard work,
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but, like the studies I showed you,
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everybody does that,
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whether or not it really was
the hard work that mattered most.
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Every successful person I know
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can think of times when they worked hard
and struggled to succeed.
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They can also think of times
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when they benefited from good luck
or a helping hand,
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but that part is harder.
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Psychologist ?? and Tom Gilovich
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call it the headwind-tailwind assymetry.
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When you're struggling against headwinds,
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those obstacles are all you can see.
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It's what you notice and remember.
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But when the wind's at your back
and everything's going your way,
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all you notice is yourself
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and our own amazing talents.
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So we have to stop and think for a minute
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to recognize those tailwinds
helping us along.
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It's so easy to see what's wrong
with people who disagree with you.
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Some of you decided that I
was an idiot in the first two minutes
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because I said inequality was harmful.
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(Laughter)
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The hard part is to recognize
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that if you were in a different position,
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you might see things differently,
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just like the subjects in our experiments.
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So if you're in the
above average group in life --
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and if you're watching a TED Talk,
you most likely are --
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then I leave you with this challenge.
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The next time you're tempted
to dismiss someone
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who disagrees with you as an idiot,
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think about the tailwinds
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that helped you get where you rae.
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What lucky breaks did you get
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that might have turned out differently?
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What helping hands are you grateful for?
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Recognizing those tailwinds
gives us the humility we need
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to see that disagreeing with us
doesn't make people idiots.
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The real hard work
is in finding common ground,
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because it's the well-off
who have the power
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and the responsibility to change things.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)