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Rich People Pay Less Attention To Other People, Says Study (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Business Insider: In a small recent study, researchers from New York University found that those who considered themselves in higher classes looked at people who walked past them less than those who said they were in a lower class did. The results were published in the journal of the Association for Psychological Science. According to Pia Dietze, a social psychology doctoral student at NYU and a lead author of the study, previous research has shown that people from different social classes vary in how they tend to behave towards other people. So, she wanted to shed some light on where such behaviors could have originated. The research was divided into three separate studies. For the first, Dietze and NYU psychology lab director Professor Eric Knowles asked 61 volunteers to walk along the street for one block while wearing Google Glass to record everything they looked at. These people were also asked to identify themselves as from a particular social class: either poor, working class, middle class, upper middle class, or upper class. An independent group watched the recordings and made note of the various people and things each Glass wearer looked at and for how long. The results showed that class identification, or what class each person said they belonged to, had an impact on how long they looked at the people who walked past them. During Study 2, participants viewed street scenes while the team tracked their eye movements. Again, higher class was associated with reduced attention to people in the images. For the third and final study, the results suggested that this difference could stem from the way the brain works, rather than being a deliberate decision. Close to 400 participants took part in an online test where they had to look at alternating pairs of images, each containing a different face and five objects. Whereas higher class participants took longer to notice when the face was different in the alternate image compared to lower classes, the amount of time it took to detect the change of objects did not differ between them. The team reached the conclusion that faces seem to be more effective in grabbing the attention of individuals who come from relatively lower class backgrounds.
... News at 11.
You got a dallah you can give me? My car jus broke down and I need to get my kids some medicin from da cvs.
You think I am kidding? I have had that exact conversation with a few variations, many times with many different people.
Keep your head down. Dont make eye contact. Maybe they will not bother you.
Actually.. It's a case of the usual bs sociological broken rational.
The study process nothing at all because...
1. The amount of data collected is microscopic and therefore of zero statistical value.
2. There are no controls at all.
3. All the tests are uncorrelated as the situation is different for each.
4. And most importantly.. Correlation is not causation! You would think 'researchers' would know this.. But apparently not.
They would be so busy patting themselves on the back at discovering something they have preconceived (bad bad rich people!) That they have ignored the real requirements of such work.
For example.. Perhaps what they are measuring is that more focus (and therefore less time spent being distracted by others around you) tends to lead to more personal wealth? Of course that is only one of hundreds of other possible reasons ( and their sample size is so microscopic nothing matters anyway).
More garbage 'science' from the experts on this..
Interesting. I had a fellow on the the train yesterday ask me for food. When I told him I didn't have any money (true), he said he didn't want money, just a loaf of bread. I had just spent nearly the last of the money in my bank account at the grocery shop (due to a banking stuff-up, payday was delayed a couple of days this month). I didn't have any bread, but I gave him one of the two bricks of cheese I'd just purchased and wished him luck in finding some bread to go with it.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
1. The amount of data collected is microscopic and therefore of zero statistical value.
The study included over 400 people. That is more than enough to be statistically valid.
2. There are no controls at all.
They used non-rich people as controls.
3. All the tests are uncorrelated as the situation is different for each.
What? They are testing for the same hypothesis.
4. And most importantly.. Correlation is not causation!
The researchers never claim it is.
discovering something they have preconceived (bad bad rich people!)
They do not put a value on any behaviors. There is nothing inherently "bad" about not looking at other people. In fact, maybe it is the other way around, and excessive attention to other people is holding back the poor. Steve Jobs once remarked that mediocre people focus on other people, while smart people focus on ideas. Of course, smart is not the same as rich, but they are correlated.
This outcome may possibly arise from a lifetime of interactions where people treat you like you owe them something. I remember I was sitting outside a church waiting for my wedding to begin when a man approached me and asked me for some money for the bus or for gas. I didn't have any cash on me, and when I told him this he became irritated and belligerently responded "can't you just walk to the gas station and use the ATM?!". I've had countless interactions with people who take eye contact as an invitation to stop you on the street to try and sell something, for a survey, to beg, or in some way impede you. If I'm out an about, its because I have places to be, so I keep my head down and keep to myself.
The study only had two nominally "upper class" individuals in it, meaning the study has too few samples to say anything about "upper class". The only thing you might infer is that middle class people pay less attention than lower class people.
But the class assignment is based on self-reports. A lot of rich people consider themselves middle class, and some middle class people by income consider themselves upper class. So, the study really says that people who consider themselves to be of a higher class pay less attention.
But wait, that's still not right. What they actually measured is "dwell time". The differences in dwell time are small and they recorded only 1 minute of video or used images on monitors. In addition, they didn't control for other factors that vary with socioeconomic status, such as level of education and IQ.
So, the study says nothing about "rich people" and next to nothing about "upper class people". And what it says about lower vs middle class may have nothing to do with attention or class.
No, but the intent of the article and this 'research' is clear: to imply that being rich somehow implies less humanity.
Or maybe it's neither. A third possibility is that as rich people generally enjoy more insulation from physical hazards and risks in social situations, their biological instinct to assess random strangers for threat potential is duller than in poor people.
Anyone want to guess a fourth?
It certainly wasn't the researchers who jumped to any SJW conclusions. The researchers found self-described rich people took less attention to random strangers. That's all. Attention is not the same as empathy.
You sure? Are you sure you're not also biased, then? Should we just give up and embrace whatever personality/cargo/political cult gets us off?
A few quick searches to see if I was even close in my assumption.
The author of the businessweek text has a degree in zoology and 'science journalism'. ..and her twitter suggests a distinct political bias all of its own
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://twitter.com/linzasaur
Pia Dietze has a major in psychology and focused on what? Yup. 'Class relations' etc.. To be fair, this looks like her phd thesis, at least based on this.. (scroll down or txt search for dietze)
https://psych.nyu.edu/programs... (note the reference to eric knowles in her bio)
https://psych.nyu.edu/knowles/
I think that pretty much sums him up in terms of his bias.
My bias was on the right track. More progressives looking to play with numbers to justfy whining about rich people
Steve Jobs once remarked that mediocre people focus on other people, while smart people focus on ideas.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Confidence gained from their private schooling.
I'm not a rich person, but some of the people in my social circle can certainly be classed as rich, while others should be classed as "middle class but working extremely hard to send their kids to private school", and others are normal middle class who send their kids to public school (I'm in the UK here). I have no kids of my own.
One thing you would immediately notice when interacting with the kids of this fairly diverse group is that those kids that go to private school have significantly more confidence in interaction and themselves than the kids that go to public school. They are taught in different ways, and they are individually fostered and curated by their school teachers and support assistance, and they have a lot of support when it comes to "soft skills" such as confidence and interaction.
Kids who go to private school are much more confident in themselves and their actions.
No, your bias isn't on the right track.
Bias is irrelevant. The methodology is either valid or invalid in relation to the hypothesis and the results. Are the findings supported by the evidence?
These are the only things that matter. The hypothesis is relevant only in relation to these concerns. What you're doing is something along the lines of poisoning the well or relying on ad hominem attacks. If there is bias, you can have a valid point if you show evidence for that bias in the study. And I'm very much open to the idea that there could be methodological flaws.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
More progressives looking to play with numbers to justify whining about rich people
Your bias sees these studies as part of a political movement, mine sees them as part of the strangely recursive science of anthropology. From the moment we are born to the day we lose our mind, watching others is how we navigate the society we find ourselves in. Those at the top of the totem pole are no longer trying to navigate, they are either trying to steer or have anchored in a safe and pleasant harbour.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
> Bias is irrelevant. The methodology is either valid or invalid in relation to the hypothesis and the results. Are the findings supported by the evidence?
Bias can, and does, profoundly skew direct results and their interpretation. This is why double blind studies are so useful, to help avoid experimental bias. Thee was an excellent example of this in the 1970's, involving Jacques Benveniste, a supporter of homeopathic medicine in his immunological research. His positive results could not be replicated when the experiments were done by a review committee with better double blind methods.
The same can be seen in almost every business plan and employee evaluation.
I would guess it's a paraphrase of this quote attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt (from my search results anyway):
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Hey now, I use that word, too, and I'm a hick from Alabama!
Maybe it's just a matter of proper education?
"There are regional and generational differences"
Exactly!!! I live in Alabama and it's considered courteous to speak to total strangers. Good morning, good evening, thank you, you're welcome, and have a nice day are ALL spoken and heard every day here. Heck, we even hold doors open for strangers. We're a friendly bunch down here. Even rich people are friendly! It's nothing unusual to see a rich person sitting next to and conversing with a poor person at a football game. Y'all just need to learn some manners.
Yep, GP loses at bad-research bingo. Also, he missed the actual problem with this research: the subjects are divided into classes by self-reporting. So the headline should read, "People who consider themselves above other people pay less attention to others." It's not an un-interesting result, but it is not quite as interesting when you put it that way.
I've worked with people of all classes, and anecdotally at least I've found that F. Scott Fitzgerald was right: the rich aren't like you and me; they have more money. Old money at least lives a little bit like the people you read about in Jane Austen books; a lot of their energy goes into socializing with others of their class. So it would be interesting to look at old money/new money this way. Another interesting confounding factor is urban/rural. Rural people tend to be poorer. Urban people actually get more human interaction per time while participating in less per person encountered.
In most interesting social science research it's not the first and obvious way of dividing up people that draws your attention (e.g. rich/poor, young/old, male/female); it's the second cut. That's because most of our pop-psych deals in the first cuts (men are from Mars, women from Venus); the second cut tells us the ways our intuitions are limited.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"Average" people are tired of the crap, period.
We are assaulted all day, every day, about how horrible we are. We are too greedy, we are destroying the world, we are racists because we want the existing written law enforced. It is a non-stop assault and people are just tired of it. This study is outright flawed just to run the current narrative that middle class workers in the US are horrible people, and the more successful they are the worse they are.
Meanwhile, you have a presidential candidate doubling down on this while TAKING BRIBES. She not only takes bribes, but bashes police officers, PAYS people to riot at her political opponent's rallys, and basically says the successful middle class are the ones to blame. She takes BRIBES while in office, and lies, and corrupts the FBI and DOJ and then says WE are the problem and you jump up and down agreeing with that sentiment.
Keep it up. The days of intimidating people into being silent by threatening to call them names is nearly over.
When did you become so anti-middle class?
Rich = Bad
Poor = Good
This is how you justify a Robin Hood mentality.
I don't know about all of the US but in my neck of the woods funding is not a problem with public schools. Spending per student is far above what it was decades ago even adjusted for inflation. I remember going to school to discuss problems with my daughter when she was in the 5th grade. After the meeting my daughter's teacher thanked me profusely for coming. It kind of surprised me and I asked her why in the world wouldn't I have come. She told me she had 7 meetings scheduled that week and I was the only parent to show up. It had never occurred to me that anyone wouldn't be interested in their child's education but as I started looking around I noticed more and more over the years that students that did well had parents that were involved and a lot of parents were not involved at all. A friend of mine's wife is a teacher and he has told me many horror stories about children who basically are raising themselves. This is not in the ghetto but a generally working class environment. In my almost 6 decades I've seen a lot of changes, some for the better but the breakdown of the US family structure is not a positive thing and it's accelerating.
ON the other hand, perhaps those folks' attention is more often in thought of how to be successful and planning their next step in life, rather than just idle people watching all the time.
I'm not wealthy, but I do alright.
And don't get me wrong, there ARE times I like to kinda just sit and people watch, especially since I live in New Orleans, and man...we have some real characters here.
But that's on relaxing days off. During the work week, however, I'm usually lost in thought on what to do, what I want to do, what I need to do....and I likely don't notice people while I'm out and about either. I'm focused on goals and what I need to do to make a buck, or enhance my pleasure in life.
So, it may not just be elite-ism....it's just that successful (and often wealthy) people have on their minds what it actually takes to be successful, and aren't spending as much time day dreaming about other peoples' lives.
I don't really see that as a bad thing...?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........