the rigged monopoly experiment
Sun 5.9.21
The psychologist Paul Piff from the University of California/ Berkeley conducted an experiment in which he brought sets of subjects into his lab to play a rigged monopoly game. One subject was to be designated the rich player and the other poor by the flip of a coin. The rich player got twice as much money as the poor player, and he also got to use 2 dices to the other’s 1. What’s more he collected $200 when he passed go while the poor player only got $100.
Within a just a few minutes the dynamics changed and the richer subject began to behave differently, became more dominant, more expansive, eating more pretzels on the table than the poor subject, and when moving his pieces across the board he would smack them down. Piff ran this experiment on a hundred pairs of subjects. The rich players became significantly ruder, bragging about how well they were doing and belittling the poor player as the game unfolded. They were less gracious with their opponent, and this pattern held with all the rich players. Through the flip of a coin, they acted as if they truly deserved to win.
What’s more, when asked afterward, not a single rich player acknowledged that he won because the coin toss was in his favor. It was because of this brilliant move or other that they succeeded. And don’t we all when good fortune comes our way, claim it as our due. It’s called capitalism.
Piff conducted a slew of experiments on the effects of wealth. His findings across every metric proves that the rich feel more entitled and deserving of their good fortune and they moralize that the unfortunates deserve what’s coming to them. They will lie when negotiating, endorse unethical behavior, cheat, break the law. What’s more, scarcity increases this feeling of entitlement among the rich. Where I live in the state of Maine there are many, many people living on the edge with a small minority of the rich and very rich who’ve bought up the coastline. Not only are they arrogant, but mean-spirited. Whereas in NYC, of course it has its slew of bastards, but by and large most of the reasonably rich are very democratic. Perhaps its because there are more of them and the playing field is more competitive.
Research by psychologist Jean Twenge at South Dakota State University has uncovered that the rich are happier. Her research encompasses the years from 1972 to 2016. What’s more, the happiness factor doesn’t plateau at a certain income level, i.e. I have enough now, I can kick back. Of course, the fact that during the time period studied, the rich became significantly richer and the number of poor increased exponentially. Also one ponders her concept of “happiness.’
When I first graduated from college I started a business called Housewife, Inc. I had some clients whose homes we cleaned on a weekly basis. Our group of women would travel from house to house in the van doing our rounds. Come lunchtime the women always chose the homes of the lower middle class for the break. Because . . . they were the more inviting, homey, comfortable, with plentiful signs of life. Rich homes were arid, and beauty, or what they thought of as beauty, was favored over comfort, the thermostat always lowered to chilling temps. The problem with money is once you start on that road there’s no end to this quest. The traders on Wall Street talk about reaching their goal, aptly named, the fuck you money. The problem they encounter is that the goal posts keep moving and you spend your life seeking a safety that is not attainable. The only fuck you security is in your guts.
The favorite posting last month was Eviction
