There’s a growing body of research from behavioral neuroscience which indicate that wealth, power, and privilege have a deleterious effect on the brain. People with high-socioeconomic status often:
Have reduced empathy and compassion.
Have a diminished ability to see from someone else’s perspective.
Have low impulse control.
Have an extreme sense of entitlement.
Have a hoarding disorder.
Have a dangerously high tolerance for risk.
When you don’t need to cooperate with other people to survive, they become irrelevant to you. When you’re in charge, you can behave very badly and people will still be polite and respectful toward you. Instead of reciprocity, it’s a formalized double standard. When you have status, you’re given excessive credibility, and rarely hear the very ordinary push-back from others most of us are accustomed to, instead you receive flattery and praise and your ideas are taken seriously by default.
Humans have a strong need for egalitarianism; without it our brains malfunction and turn us into the worst versions of ourselves.
Some sources:
Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years
That literally sounds like the local rich kid that was a bully but then got a DUI and killed someone but because his parents are rich didn’t even serve a day.
There’s a growing body of research from behavioral neuroscience which indicate that wealth, power, and privilege have a deleterious effect on the brain. People with high-socioeconomic status often:
When you don’t need to cooperate with other people to survive, they become irrelevant to you. When you’re in charge, you can behave very badly and people will still be polite and respectful toward you. Instead of reciprocity, it’s a formalized double standard. When you have status, you’re given excessive credibility, and rarely hear the very ordinary push-back from others most of us are accustomed to, instead you receive flattery and praise and your ideas are taken seriously by default.
Humans have a strong need for egalitarianism; without it our brains malfunction and turn us into the worst versions of ourselves.
Some sources:
Hubris syndrome: An acquired personality disorder? A study of US Presidents and UK Prime Ministers over the last 100 years
(Abstract) or (Full Text)
Does power corrupt? An fMRI study on the effect of power and social value orientation on inequity aversion.
(Abstract) or (PDF Full Text)
Social Class and the Motivational Relevance of Other Human Beings: Evidence From Visual Attention
(Abstract) or (PDF Full Text)
The Psychology of Entrenched Privilege: High Socioeconomic Status Individuals From Affluent Backgrounds Are Uniquely High in Entitlement
(Abstract) or (PDF Full Text)
Hoarding Disorder: It’s More Than Just an Obsession - Implications for Financial Therapists and Planners
(Abstract) or (PDF Full Text)
On the evolution of hoarding, risk-taking, and wealth distribution in nonhuman and human populations
(Abstract) or (Full Text)
Aren’t those signs of sociopathy?
I think we need to forbid people who qualify as sociopaths from holding any office with any degree of power. They can’t be trusted with power.
That literally sounds like the local rich kid that was a bully but then got a DUI and killed someone but because his parents are rich didn’t even serve a day.