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The Lower Your Social Class, the 'Wiser' You Are, Suggests New Study (sciencemag.org)
Wisdom -- the ability to take the perspectives of others into account and aim for compromise -- comes much more naturally to those who grow up poor or working class, according to a new study by social psychologist Igor Grossman at the University of Waterloo in Canada and his colleagues. Science Magazine reports: To conduct the study, Grossmann and his graduate student Justin Brienza embarked on a two-part experiment. First, they asked 2145 people throughout the United States to take an online survey. Participants were asked to remember a recent conflict they had with someone, such as an argument with a spouse or a fight with a friend. They then answered 20 questions applicable to that or any conflict, including: "Did you ever consider a third-party perspective?" "How much did you try to understand the other person's viewpoint?" and "Did you consider that you might be wrong?" Grossmann and Brienza crunched the data and assigned the participants both a "wise reasoning" score based on the conflict answers and a "social class" score, then plotted the two scores against one another. They found that people with the lowest social class scores -- those with less income, less education, and more worries about money -- scored about twice as high on the wise reasoning scale as those in the highest social class. The income and education levels ranged from working class to upper middle class; neither the very wealthy nor the very poor were well represented in the study.
In the second part of the experiment, the duo recruited 200 people in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan, to take a standard IQ test and read three letters to the Dear Abby advice column. One letter, for example, asked about choosing sides in an argument between mutual friends. Each participant then discussed with an interviewer how they thought the situations outlined in the letters would play out. A panel of judges scored their responses according to various measures of wise reasoning. In the example above, thinking about how an outsider might view the conflict would earn points toward wisdom, whereas relying only on one's own perspective would not. As with the first part of the experiment, those in lower social classes consistently had higher wise-reasoning scores than those in higher social classes, the researchers reported today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. IQ scores, however, weren't associated one way or another with wise reasoning.
In the second part of the experiment, the duo recruited 200 people in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan, to take a standard IQ test and read three letters to the Dear Abby advice column. One letter, for example, asked about choosing sides in an argument between mutual friends. Each participant then discussed with an interviewer how they thought the situations outlined in the letters would play out. A panel of judges scored their responses according to various measures of wise reasoning. In the example above, thinking about how an outsider might view the conflict would earn points toward wisdom, whereas relying only on one's own perspective would not. As with the first part of the experiment, those in lower social classes consistently had higher wise-reasoning scores than those in higher social classes, the researchers reported today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. IQ scores, however, weren't associated one way or another with wise reasoning.
Wisdom -- the ability to take the perspectives of others into account
What the author describes could be many things: diplomacy, empathy, humility even. But it is not wisdom. Though I can understand that people with less money (though that has little to do with "class" or entitlement - excpet possibly in the USA) will be forced to become more skilled in the art of compromise.
Wisdom, as we all know, is not putting tomatoes in a fruit salad.
And then the white working class went and voted for Donald Trump on a promise to disenfranchise anybody who isn't white, crack down on black people complaining that the police shoots them for no reason, build a wall on the Mexican border, deport people by the millions and rubber stamp Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians without any attempt to put themselves in the place of the people being affected by these crackdowns. I'm failing to see the empathy and the willingness to compromise here.
"Seeing the view and perspective of other people" != "Empathy"
Psychopath are often very good as seeing the view and perspective of other people... and how to abuse that knowledge for personal gain.
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Wisdom is "the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; the quality of being wise." It has nothing to do with being able to understand someone else's perspective, nor does it have anything to do with class.
I have a serious problem with this kind of article redefining what words mean, and then ascribing positive traits to lower-class people and negative traits to upper-class people. It's the same story as with "emotional intelligence": that was just a crutch to allow less intelligent people to feel good about themselves and to let them look down on smarter people, because those are _obviously_ not emotionally intelligent as well.
And this is the same: being poor does not make you wise. I've seen poor people make horrendously unwise decisions, and in some cases they are poor because of that.
Group living in all species is dependent on tolerance of other group members. In crab-eating macaques, successful social group living maintains postconflict resolution must occur. Usually, less dominant individuals lose to a higher-ranking individual when conflict arises. After the conflict has taken place, lower-ranking individuals tend to fear the winner of the conflict to a greater degree. In one study, this was seen by the ability to drink water together. Postconflict observations showed a staggered time between when the dominant individual begins to drink and the subordinate. Long-term studies reveal the gap in drinking time closes as the conflict moves further into the past. -- Long-tailed Macaques
tldr; All individuals depend on the group, higher ranking individuals, whose position in the group is more secure, can afford to be assholes.
If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
Despite the prevailing wisdom that its poor white hicks that vote for Republicans, the evidence is actually not like that. There's a lot of folks, small business owners, managers and the likes.
I'm going to get my head bit off this, but hear me out. One of Karl Marx's best observations is that people are basically self-interested. That isnt unique to him, most economists prior and after agreeing with him on that. What his big insight is, however, is that people form ideologies to justify or self explain their relationship to capital, or more loosely, wealth. Rich people are attracted to ideologies like Libertarianism or neo-conservatism. Poorer folks are more likely to be attracted to more socialist or even communist in extreme cases, ideologies. Conservatism and its spiral eyed crazy distant-cousin Fascism are the ideologies of the middle class. Those who think they are better than the poor folk, dont want the poor folk costing them tax, but still ultimately are just working for the man themselves. You dont have to agree with marxism, to see he made a pretty good observation there.
Racism , sociologists argue, formed as a sort of pact between the white working class and the ruling caste in society. We'll give you better pay, and we wont give any of your jobs to those black folks, if you promise not to do anything buck crazy like joining the Commies or voting out the rich guys. It provided a way to essentially tame that self-interested streak in the working class by giving them something to be resentful of that isnt their fat rich bosses. Now none of this is some grand conspiracy. Its an emergent phenomena of millions and millions of people acrting on what they believe is their own self interest.
Trump though. I half suspect the 50% of the population where having a bit of a granddad moment with that one
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
I had a rich uncle - muiltimillionaire self made - he worked all the time, had questionable ethics and morality (screwed over my father just because), he was hardly home, and just a dick.
He left my cousin quite a bit of money. Now, think of what happens to a kid who has a father like that and a mother who put up with it.
All the money my cousin got went up his nose and for lawyers to get him out of trouble.
He's broke now.
He's not an outlier. I see this time and time again, children of financially successful people get fucked up. Look at all the entertainment stars' kids who end up in rehab.
Donald Trump is the son of a successful guy and look how fucked up he is.
And I was once at one of those talks where some really rich guy basically gets up there and blabs about how successful he is and you can too! (It's mostly luck, btw). Five minutes in he's tearing up because he didn't have any relationships with his grown kids.
If there exists an optimal solution to any problem, then compromise is likely to be the very least effective method to discover it. By definition, any solution reached through compromise is diluted by opposing intentions.
If person A is right, and person B is wrong...any concession to deviate from person A's path results in an inferior outcome. Compromise may smooth out conflicts with one's peers, but avoiding conflict is not necessarily wise. In fact, it could be argued that conflict is the arena in which contending viewpoints are refined and gain exposure. Social psychologist Igor Grossman posited that society as a whole is getting smarter and wondered why we 'we have just as many, if not more, conflicts as before?'. The answer seems obvious: Because society as a whole is getting smarter, and having just as many, if not more, conflicts is the desired outcome.
True wisdom lay not in compromise, but in knowing when to fight and when to concede. Learn how to debate rationally and evaluate your opposition's argument. If your opponent is correct...don't insist on compromise. Instead, take up his (or her) banner without rancor or recrimination.
And then the white working class went and voted for Donald Trump on a promise to disenfranchise anybody who isn't white, crack down on black people complaining that the police shoots them for no reason, build a wall on the Mexican border, deport people by the millions and rubber stamp Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians without any attempt to put themselves in the place of the people being affected by these crackdowns. I'm failing to see the empathy and the willingness to compromise here.
Wow you really are delusional aren't you? Can you point to where Trump promised to disenfranchise anyone who isn't white? Right. Didn't think so. But turning around and having voter ID laws isn't disenfranchisement, you of course realize that every western country BUT the US has voter ID laws. Can't remember where he is cracking down on "poor blackies" for getting shot. Remember how Obama and his administration went out of his way to race bait, go after police for doing their jobs and so on? Notice how crime has started spiking because of what the previous government did? Bet you were fine with all those actions. Building the wall is a good idea, they work and work well. Ask eastern european countries how well they're working. There are millions of illegals in the US so deporting them? That'd be a good start too. Of course in your racism, you probably think that when people say "deport illegals" they just mean mexicans. No they're talking about all illegals. They want to be there, do it legally, just like everyone else. Funny how you're not protesting Mexico's border wall, or their abysmal treatment of blacks. Or the systemic abuses against people who illegally enter mexico. Nope, the US has to simply let everyone in!
Rubber stamping ethnic cleansing? Really? So you start out delusional then go right into batshit crazy huh? Which is why all those palestinian groups have things like "there can be no peace with the jews" "they must be driven into the sea" "there can be no peace with the jewish state" "it's the duty of xyz to murder the jews" and on and on and on. Most peaceful, full of compromise, really want to get along with the jews. It almost reminds me of the old saying: "The only peace you'll know is the peace of the grave." Funny how Saudi Arabia is suddenly becoming a staunch ally of Israel though isn't it.
Om, nomnomnom...
As a poll worker ("volunteer": they paid us, about 1/10 of a day's pay for an 18-hour day), I totally agree with the idea of consistent and reliable ID methods.
So you are half right. But it's the thin and weak half.
Those of us who were born into families with the basic resources to give us a good start were able to spend the effort to set up drivers licenses (the typical ID) which are trivial to renew once set up. To us, it does not appear to be a very high bar.
"Conservatives" are careful to avoid, and have largely successfully avoided an important point: There are many people who would otherwise be fully capable were born to families so far down that they could not get that start. And from that position, they often do not have the resources to get the legal documents that get the ball rolling.
Countries with good quality voter ID laws/practices do not erect the legal impediments to getting that initial start, and their citizens do not experience the disenfranchisement that we see in too many places in the U.S.
The Moneylenders in the temple say screw the libtard poor
They were money CHANGERS, not money lenders.
The story of JC driving the "money lenders" from the temple is TOTALLY MISUNDERSTOOD by most people, and even many theologists. The lesson they take away is that JC wanted to "keep the temple holy", but the actual point was the exact opposite. At the time, mainstream Judaism was obsessed with "purity" rituals, and people would change their soiled and worn money for clean and polished money (paying a premium to do so) so they could make an offering with "clean" money. But JC was objecting to the "purity" rather than the "commerce", and was expressing the Essene philosophy of getting back to basics, and doing away with purity and ritual. He wanted to make the temple more accessible to the common people.
Making money by treating people like shit doesn't make you successful in my book. It just makes you an asshole.
When a recession hits, the "asshole" CED will immediately lay off 10% of his workforce.
The "nice" CEO will delay and dither while his finances deteriorate, and eventually have to lay off 20-30%, or possibly go bankrupt.
Not putting off hard decisions out of empathy is one reason that psychopaths often make better leaders.
You are excluding the possibility that many successful people succeed because of their lack of empathy, not despite it.
Get off your moral high horse. It's not that they don't have empathy, it's that they don't allow their decision making process to be exclusively dominated by it. People who make decisions exclusively based on emotions do not fare as well as those who also mix in rational thinking. Rational thinking coupled with extensive knowledge and experience can do remarkable things that emotions alone cannot.
We still live in a world of economic scarcity unfortunately and as such you must make decisions according to that. When we arrive at a utopia, which I sincerely hope we do, it will fundamentally alter the decision making and it will be rational to behave the way you ideally think we should. We are not your enemy.
We'll make great pets
Not quite right. As I understand it, they were required to pay in the coinage accepted by the temple, which meant they had to give gifts in Jewish currency, not Roman or Greek currency. It had nothing to do with making the money pure, but rather with converting it to a form that the church would accept. And because they were far from home and did not have the advantage of knowing where to find good conversion rates, those money changers cheated them massively.
So it was, indeed, about making the temple pure from those who would prey upon the naïveté of foreigners, while at the same time sending their soldiers to attack other nations for theft and barbarity. The hypocrisy was what Jesus wanted to cleanse from the temple, along with the unethical commerce.
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At my college, I became friendly with one of the security guards after he saved my life. He found me unconscious and laying on the ground. Turned out I had a life threatening infection and never knew. Well, we were talking one day and I had it out with my dad. I swore I would never make the same mistakes with my child when I have one. I swore that I would be a better father. Officer Joe looked me in the eye and said, "You won't make the same mistakes. You're right about that. You'll make all new ones. Have gratitude, not hate in your heart." 20 years later, after health issues, personal and professional failure, and heart ache, I'm now working as a security guard. I decided to become a security guard after thinking of Officer Joe. It's a hand to mouth existence but I've never felt more wealthy and freer. It took me 20 years of lost time that I won't ever get back, but I learned a lesson most never learn in their life times.