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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.
Poor people are not spoiled rotten, nor are they accustomed to be able to make every problem "go away" by application of money. This gives them a whole lot more experience dealing with problems that involves having to deal with things and situations where you just can't in various ways brute force your way.
Also, see "Cake, why don't they eat".
By virtue of having been born on the wrong side of the tracks, I'm pretty much screwed. Stuck on a low level job I hate but hope it's still there next year. My Christmas presents are a pile of bills to pay. My best years have come and gone. I'd rather be a rich fool than a wise pauper.
You are excluding the possibility that many successful people succeed because of their lack of empathy, not despite it.
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That's what N N Thaleb calls skin in the game: https://medium.com/incerto/on-... .
It's an important skill, and obviously part of what we call wisdom, but I don't think it's the sine qua non.
I can offer an SSI benefit letter as supporting credentials.
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.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
The higher your class, the less the ability to compromise is developed after a lifetime of getting whatever you want because you have money. Seems about right.
I understand the sentiment, but are you sure about that?
Should my final report card, at the end of my life, be a record of my accumulated assets, or an archive of my virtues, achievements and reputation?
Which of these will touch my descendants?
Be careful what you wish for..
- A friend
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"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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That's complacency, adaptation and submisiveness.
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I would rather leave a pile of assets to my next gen, than a pile of virtue which will count for NOTHING in the grand scheme of things. Sure , don't leave a negative legacy behind you i.o.w. don't be a murderer, or a rapist, or a scammer, etc.... But virtue left to your kid/grand kid ? Pah. That sure as hell will warm their heart when the bill comes to be paid, or will help them scale social ladder.... not.
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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.
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The Moneylenders in the temple say screw the libtard poor, I didn't get where I am today by not stepping on the faces of the cattle I despise so much. Evolution says the strongest survive and I am an animal, so death to the poor! Of course everyone hates me for my arrogance and arguably I am nothing to do with human civilisation but civilisation is for losers. Happy Christmas everyone!
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
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.
Wisdom is compromise?
The study is absurd at the outset because they have a ridiculous definition of wisdom.
In a recent feature on This American Life, Betsy DeVos was depicted as being a very compassionate and generous person (she helped individual students to get private schooling), but lacking empathy (she didn't understand the multiple issues with public schools and the diverse population and the regulatory frameworks for the public school system in the US. Also, she didn't appreciate the need for scalable solutions). MORE: https://www.thisamericanlife.o...
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
Making money by treating people like shit doesn't make you successful in my book. It just makes you an asshole.
There's also nothing admirable in being rich.
Moderation is the key. I want just enough money to live comfortably, but never so much that people who could inherit my shit want to see me croak.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Give it time. We're working on a scenario again where we create a critical mass of people with nothing to lose.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think this has a lot to do with it -- with less empathy you're less likely to question your own goals and methods. (*cough* Jobs *cough*)
If true (a big "if"), it would play to stereotypes that the poor view the rich as successful criminals, and the rich see the poor as weak and shiftless.
We have at least some confirmation of this in that a number of successful conservatives have changed from anti-LGBTQ to pro-LGBTQ when their daughter or son came out. Their empathy simply doesn't extend beyond their close associations, while "bleeding heart liberals" empathize with people in far away countries whom they've never met, and possibly never heard of until recently.
I'm pretty sure -- no, make that REALLY SURE -- that's not the definition of Communism.
Not only that, but the most dedicated Communists have always been the educated children of the middle and upper classes.
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It's a well-known phenomenon known as "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations."
"THE Chinese have a saying, “Fu bu guo san dai,” or “Wealth never survives three generations.” America has its own version of this saying: “From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” As with most old proverbs, there is a grain of truth to this—and the new rich are searching for ways to avoid history's curse." -- The Economist (likely paywalled)
It's hilarious that you brought up Trump as an example of moneyed parents creating useless children...
He's the president of the United States... You fucking imbecile.
"Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. "
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.
but that's not why he won. He won on economic populism; by promising the government would solve people's problems. His speeches where chock full of socialist rhetoric. Those ideas are overwhelmingly popular, it's just people don't like to admit to them. It's like this: get a room full of people together and ask them what kind of coffee they like and they'll tell you they want a bold, rich roast. But look at coffee says and what people actually drink and, well, you've got Starbucks frappachinnos and the like. See here. Yeah, it's a Ted Talk, and worse Malcolm Gladwell, but his points are solid (also not his).
tl;dr; It's not racism, it's the economy stupid. That's important because if you start thinking it's racism you'll try to solve the wrong problem, and Trump and his ilk will keep on winning.
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It does make people successful in the economy's book though, and that's the book that keeps track of who can afford what. Our economic system is completely indifferent to assholery or suffering.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
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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A wise man learns from other people's mistakes.
I believe this academic is confusing empathy with wisdom, not the same thing. Of course, the chronic psychopaths usually occupy the highest positions: hence the labor history throughout America and the planet of murdering labor organizers, union organizers and protesters and journalists, etc.
Yeah, but screwing over other people to get on top plays out more often. The way more empathetic cultures handle that is that the EXECUTIVES take pay cuts, but even thinking that will get you thrown out of a boardroom.
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This study is beneath notice, but I do have one thing to add.
In The Baroque Cycle Stephenson satirizes the myopic culture of Versailles. The higher up one goes in status, the smaller the tea leaf microscope required.
While a few of the noblemen (and women) are relative dunderheads, there's no shortage of nested-plot mastermind decoders.
Studies of adolescent culture have determined that the kids with the highest social status experience the most severe anxiety about committing a social blunder.
Just like Versailles.
(Also, remember that result next time you chuckle mindlessly about scientists doing a study which only managed to confirm the patently obvious.)
The Fonz might seem cool to those around him, but deep down he's mainly driven by hair gel OCD.
Wise people don't answer surveys. That explains these stupid findings.
Just another day in Paradise
No, rational thinking would lead you to cut the military budget and corporate subsidies, since they have far less utility to society. All that's needed to maintain Social Security's stability is to raise the cap, making it less of a regressive tax. The reason Republicans and Centrist Dems want to cut or "reform" Social Security is to cover for the money they've wasted elsewhere.
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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.