Roy Eidelson – Page 2 – Engaging Peace

Psychology’s “Dark Triad” and the Billionaire Class, Part 2

Posted on October 28, 2019October 28, 2019 by kathiemm

by Roy Eidelson

Psychopathy

The second component of the Dark Triad — psychopathy — refers to a person’s lack of empathy toward others and a tendency to behave in a callous and uncaring manner toward them. Here too, research by psychologists supports the view that, compared to their “lower-class” counterparts, “upper-class” individuals act with less compassion — and also fall short on certain basic skills necessary for building positive connections with other people.

In one experiment, for example, lower-income participants were substantially more willing to take on extra work to help out a distressed research partner than were the upper-income participants. In another study, lower-class participants demonstrated a stronger compassion-related physiological response than did their upper-class counterparts after watching a video of children suffering from cancer. In a related study, the lower-class participants in a stressful interview process showed greater sensitivity and compassion toward their competitors than did the upper-class interviewees. And in an experiment with four-year-old children, those from less wealthy homes behaved more altruistically than those from wealthier homes, donating more of their prize tokens to children they were told were hospitalized.

In other studies, individuals from a lower social class were significantly better than upper-class participants at judging the emotions being portrayed when they were presented with photos of human faces. The researchers concluded that this enhanced ability may reflect the reality that those who are less well-off must rely more on accurately reading their social environment, because they depend more on interpersonal relationships and collaborative efforts in their daily lives. On the other hand, individuals with extensive material resources like today’s super-rich are more likely to find close relationships, especially with people of lesser means, quite unnecessary in their goal-oriented pursuits — and their perspective-taking abilities may suffer as a result.

In the business world, a compassion deficit among members of the billionaire class isn’t very hard to see. For example, rarely do we hear the CEOs of today’s corporate behemoths acknowledge the critical role that they themselves play in blocking upward mobility and financial security for millions of working-class Americans. Most obviously, union-busting and related “right-to-work” efforts suppress the wages and benefits that could dramatically improve the lives of working families. More broadly, despite substantial increases in worker productivity over the past few decades, the super-rich have directed the rewards of economic growth into their own pockets rather than into their employees’ paychecks. Likewise, international trade agreements, written in secret with strong corporate representation, have prioritized protecting profits for huge companies over safeguarding wages, human rights, and the environment. Perhaps this callousness is captured especially well by Amazon’s billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos, who reportedly once described his negotiating approach as similar to “the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle.”

Narcissism

The third trait of the Dark Triad — narcissism — refers to an individual’s sense of superiority over other people and convictions about personal entitlement to special treatment. Once again, in a diverse set of psychological studies, individuals of higher social class displayed greater levels of narcissism and entitlement than did their less wealthy counterparts.

In one study, for example, participants who rated themselves higher on a measure of socioeconomic status also scored higher on a scale designed to measure psychological entitlement; a sample item from that scale is “I honestly feel I’m just more deserving than others.” Another study instead used a nonverbal measure of entitlement. Participants looked at sets of circles of varying sizes and were asked to identify which size circle best described how they saw themselves compared to others. Those of higher social status picked larger circles as their self-descriptors than did those of lower social status. In a third study that used a behavioral measure of narcissism, upper-class participants were more likely than their lower-class counterparts to make use of a wall mirror before having their photos taken. In a survey study, researchers in Germany directly assessed a sample of very high net-worth individuals. They too found that this group scored higher on a measure of narcissism compared to a separate sample of people of lesser economic means.

In the board room and beyond, the narcissistic super-rich are accustomed to being in charge and to having things their way — unlike those they sometimes refer to as “the little people.” Of course, they don’t necessarily feel fortunate in this regard because, by their own account, they fully deserve all the benefits and privileges bestowed upon them. The special favors they receive are particularly apparent when we consider the corrupting influence of wealth on “equal justice under law,” the hallowed words engraved atop the Supreme Court Building in our nation’s capital. Indeed, unequal treatment runs the gamut from the likelihood of arrest and prosecution to the leniency offered in sentencing. As one example of these unwritten norms, wealthy tax cheats have developed a broad repertoire of arguments — based on notions of personal superiority — for why they should receive a light sentence or no sentence at all after being caught, prosecuted, and found guilty (all rarities in their own right). Their farfetched justifications — which some judges nevertheless find persuasive — include all of the following: they’ve already suffered sufficient public humiliation for their misdeeds; although they cheated, they’ve also been generous in their charitable donations; the fines they’ve paid were sufficiently punitive; and their status as “job creators” makes it unwise to remove them from the community and put them behind bars.

Note from KMM: Pegean says, Narcissism? Narcissist? Where have i heard those words before? Somewhere in this blog….

Psychology’s “Dark Triad” and the Billionaire Class, Part 1

Posted on October 25, 2019October 25, 2019 by kathiemm

by Roy Eidelson

They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. — F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

The Outrage of Billionaires

The data are stark and compelling. The richest 400 families in the United States own financial assets that exceed the wealth of the bottom 60% of all American households combined. U.S. billionaires pay taxes at a lower effective rate than working class families. The CEOs of S&P 500 companies, averaging over $14 million in annual compensation, make roughly as much in a single day as their median employee earns in an entire year. At the same time, research shows that such extreme inequality between rich and poor is a driving force behind many of society’s most profound and corrosive ills. These disparities are associated with diminished levels of physical health, mental health, educational achievement, social mobility, trust, and community life. They’re also linked to heightened levels of infant mortality, obesity, drug abuse, crime, violence, and incarceration.

In light of these realities, it’s no surprise that some political leaders are calling for dramatic policy changes designed to tamp down economic inequality. Equally unsurprising, some members of the so-called billionaire class in this country are outraged by these proposals. Responding to Senator Bernie Sanders’s comment that he doesn’t think billionaires should exist, Stephen Schwarzman — the billionaire CEO of the private equity firm Blackstone Group — told a New York City audience, “Maybe Bernie Sanders shouldn’t exist.” On the Fox Business Network, Ken Langone, the billionaire co-founder of Home Depot, angrily called Sanders a “blowhard” and asked, “What the hell has he done for the little people?” And CNBC host Jim Cramer reported that Wall Street executives — privately discussing the aspirations of Senator Elizabeth Warren — had told him “she’s got to be stopped.”

Complaints like these are nothing new from America’s super-rich. Almost a decade ago, Schwarzman (noted above) compared the possible elimination of a favorable hedge fund tax loophole to “when Hitler invaded Poland.” A few years later, in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, now-deceased billionaire venture capitalist Tom Perkins wrote, “I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its ‘one-percent,’ namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one-percent, namely the ‘rich.’” And fellow billionaire Sam Zell told Bloomberg News, “This country should not talk about envy of the one-percent. It should talk about emulating the one-percent.”

But should we really be trying to emulate the one-percent? Perhaps not. Psychological research suggests that the super-rich, as a group, aren’t necessarily the role models we collectively need if our goal is to advance the common good and build a more decent society. In particular, one reason to be skeptical involves a constellation of interlinked personality traits — Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism — that psychologists call the “Dark Triad.” The originators of the term summarize it this way: “To varying degrees, all three entail a socially malevolent character with behavior tendencies toward self-promotion, emotional coldness, duplicity, and aggressiveness.”

Let’s now consider each of these three components separately, in regard to what they may tell us about the one-percent.

Machiavellianism

The first trait of the Dark Triad — Machiavellianism — refers to one’s willingness to deceitfully manipulate and exploit people and circumstances for personal gain. In an illuminating series of studies, psychologists have found that this tendency is more common among those with greater wealth and status.

These researchers compared the actions of participants categorized as either “upper class” or “lower class” — based on measures of socioeconomic status — in a variety of different situations. For example, one study used the age, model, and appearance of cars as a proxy for the drivers’ wealth. Those driving more expensive vehicles cut off pedestrians and other cars more often at a busy intersection. In a second study, higher social-class participants reported a greater likelihood of engaging in various unethical behaviors, such as keeping extra change that was mistakenly given to them by a cashier. In a third study, half of the participants first compared themselves to people at the top of the socioeconomic ladder, while the other half instead compared themselves to those at the bottom of the ladder. Afterward, those in the second group — now primed to see themselves as better off than others — took more candy from a jar they were told had treats intended for children in a lab nearby. In yet another study, participants were instructed to play the role of an employer involved a hypothetical salary negotiation with a prospective employee. They were told that this job hunter was specifically looking for a long-term position — and that this available opening would only last six-months. The researchers found that those higher in social class were more likely to deceptively withhold this important information from the applicant. A final study involved a game of chance using the computerized rolling of dice. Here too, the participants higher in social class cheated more often in order to receive a modest cash prize.

With findings like these, is it surprising that many huge corporations — controlled by individuals with extraordinary personal wealth — have employed Machiavellian tactics that fail to honor the public trust? There’s no shortage of high-profile examples. At Enron, officials fraudulently propped up the company’s stock price, leading thousands of unsuspecting employees to lose their retirement savings when the company collapsed shortly thereafter. General Motors turned a blind eye to manufacturing defects and then, despite the heightened risk of driver injury and death, engaged in a years-long cover-up. R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco companies spent decades withholding scientific evidence and misleading the public about the harmful effects of smoking. Large for-profit colleges and training institutes have lured students into expensive programs with deceptive advertising, have offered them false assurances of future employment, and have saddled them with lifetimes of debt. During the financial collapse a decade ago, investment banking giant Goldman Sachs recommended and sold to its clients billions of dollars of deceptively valued securities tied to risky home mortgages — in order to unload these toxic assets from its own accounts. And pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma continued to aggressively market OxyContin for years after the company learned that the drug was highly addictive, contributing to tens of thousands of deaths from prescription opioid overdoses.

Note from KMM: Pegean says: Reprinted with permission from Psychology Today, October 25, 2019.To be continued.

Give peace a chance: Don’t believe the war profiteers, Part 4

Posted on August 2, 2019August 10, 2019 by kathiemm

Detail from Vereshchagin’s painting The Apotheosis of War (1871) came to be admired as one of the earliest artistic expressions of pacifism – Public Domain

by Roy Eidelson

There are many others, but what I’ve described are ten important examples of the mind games that war profiteers have used and will use to pursue their aims. Because these appeals often have the ring of truth even though they’re as flimsy as a conman’s promises, combating them can be daunting. But we shouldn’t be discouraged. Scientific research on the psychology of persuasion offers a guide to how we can hold firm against the war machine’s self-serving propaganda.

One key is what psychologists call “attitude inoculation.” The basic idea comes from the familiar public health approach used to prevent contracting and spreading a dangerous virus. Consider the flu vaccine. When you get a flu shot, you’re receiving a modest dose of the actual influenza virus. Your body responds by building up antibodies, which will prove essential in fighting off the full-blown virus if it later attacks as you go about your daily life. A flu shot doesn’t always work, but it improves your odds of staying healthy. That’s why we’re encouraged to get one each year before the flu season begins.

Consider, then, that the war profiteers’ mind games are similarly like a virus, one that can “infect” us with false and destructive beliefs. Here too, inoculation is the best defense. Having been warned that this “virus” is heading our way—spread by the enormous megaphones of the military-industrial complex—we can become vigilant and prepare ourselves for the onslaught by learning to recognize these mind games and by building and practicing counterarguments to them.

For example, contrary to the claims of warmongers, the use of military force often makes us more vulnerable, not less: by multiplying our enemies, placing our soldiers in harm’s way, and distracting us from other pressing needs. Likewise, military action can be a profound injustice in its own right—because it kills, maims, and displaces untold numbers of innocent people, with many becoming refugees, and because it drains resources from critical domestic programs. So too, distrust of a potential adversary is hardly sufficient grounds for military assault, especially when opportunities for diplomacy and negotiation are prematurely pushed aside. And when it comes to superiority, unilateral aggression certainly doesn’t represent the best of our values, and it often diminishes our image and influence in the world beyond our borders. Finally, there’s a proud history of non-violent civil resistance, with successes large and small, and it shows us that the people—educated, organized and mobilized—are far from helpless against even unbridled and abusive power.

Counterarguments of this sort—and there are many—are the “antibodies” that we need when we’re faced with all-out mind game assaults from the war machine and its supporters. Just as importantly, once we’ve inoculated ourselves against them, we’re able to become “first responders” by actively participating in the crucial discussions and debates that are necessary to persuade others that it would be worth their while to try looking at the world differently from the way the war profiteers want us all to see it. In these conversations, it’s especially important for us to emphasize why representatives of the war machine want us to cling to certain beliefs, and how they are the ones who benefit when we do. In general, when we encourage skepticism and critical thinking in this way, it makes us less susceptible to misinformation from those looking to take advantage of us for their own selfish purposes.

I’ll conclude by briefly quoting two very different people. First, returning to West Point, there’s this from a cadet who graduated over a hundred years ago: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” That was retired General Dwight Eisenhower, shortly after being elected President in 1952. And second, the late anti-war activist Father Daniel Berrigan reportedly gave the shortest high school graduation speech ever in New York City. All he said was this: “Know where you stand, and stand there.” Let’s do that together. Thank you.

Give peace a chance: Don’t believe the war profiteers, Part 3

Posted on July 31, 2019August 10, 2019 by kathiemm

by Roy Eidelson

Let’s move to the third core concern manipulated by the war profiteers: distrust. We tend to divide the world into those we find trustworthy and those we don’t. Where we draw that line matters a lot. When we get it right, we avoid harm from those who have hostile intentions, and we’re able to enjoy the rewards of collaborative relationships. But we often make these judgments with only limited information of uncertain reliability. As a result, our conclusions about the trustworthiness of particular people, groups, and sources of information are frequently flawed and problematic, especially when others with ulterior motives—warmongers immediately come to mind—have influenced our thinking.

For instance, “They’re Different from Us” is one distrust mind game that war profiteers rely on when trying to win over the public’s support. They use it to encourage our suspicions of other groups by arguing that they don’t share our values, our priorities, or our principles. We see this regularly, including in the highly lucrative business of promoting Islamophobia, and also when other nations are repeatedly characterized as primitive and barbaric. This mind game works because, psychologically, when we don’t perceive someone as part of our ingroup, we tend to view them as less trustworthy, we hold them in lower regard, and we’re less willing to share scarce resources with them. So, convincing the American public that a group is truly different or deviant is a significant step toward diminishing our concern for their welfare.

At the same time, representatives of the war machine turn to a second distrust appeal—the “They’re Misguided and Misinformed” mind game—to smear anti-war opponents. They spur distrust toward these critics by arguing that they lack sufficient knowledge, or suffer from unrecognized biases, or are the victims of others’ intentional misinformation—and that, as a result, their dissenting views are unworthy of serious consideration. So, for example, the war profiteers disparage and try to discredit anti-war groups like World Beyond War, Code Pink, and Veterans for Peace with demonstrably false claims that the activists don’t understand the real causes of the problems they seek to fix, and that their proposed remedies will only make matters worse for everyone. In fact, the actual evidence rarely supports the positions of endless war enthusiasts. When this mind game is successful, the public disregards important voices of dissent. And when that happens, crucial opportunities for tackling out-of-control militarism and advancing the common good are lost.

Turning now to the fourth core concern, superiority, we’re quick to compare ourselves to others, often in an effort to demonstrate that we’re worthy of respect. Sometimes this desire is even stronger: we want confirmation that we’re better in some important way—perhaps in our accomplishments, or in our values, or in our contributions to society. But in these efforts to bolster our own positive self-appraisals, we’re sometimes encouraged to perceive and portray others in as negative a light as possible, even to the point of dehumanizing them. And since the judgments we make about our own worth—and the qualities of others—are often quite subjective, these impressions are also susceptible to manipulation by the war machine.

For example, the “Pursuing A Higher Purpose” mind game is one way that war profiteers appeal to superiority in order to build public support for endless war. Here, they present their actions as an affirmation of American exceptionalism, insisting that their policies have deep moral underpinnings and reflect the cherished principles that lift this country above others—even when what they’re defending is the pardoning of war criminals; or the torturing of terrorism suspects; or the internment of Japanese-Americans; or the violent overthrow of elected leaders in other countries, to name just a few instances. When this mind game succeeds, contrary indicators—of which there are a lot—are disingenuously explained away as the mere, small imperfections that always come with the pursuit of collective greatness. Too often, the public is fooled when greed is disguised in ways that tap into our sense of pride in our country’s accomplishments and its influence in the world.

Representatives of the war machine simultaneously aim to marginalize their critics with a second superiority appeal: the “They’re Un-American” mind game. Here, they portray those who oppose them as disgruntled and unappreciative of the United States and the values and traditions that “real Americans” hold dear. In doing so, they take particular advantage of the public’s entrenched respect and deference toward all things military. In this way, they prey on the allure of what psychologists call “blind patriotism.” This ideological stance involves the staunch conviction that one’s country is never wrong in its actions or policies, that allegiance to the country must be unquestioning and absolute, and that criticism of the country cannot be tolerated. When this mind game is successful, anti-war forces are further isolated and dissent is ignored or suppressed.

Finally, in regard to our fifth core concern, real or perceived helplessness can sink any undertaking. That’s because believing we can’t control important outcomes in our lives leads to resignation, which wrecks our motivation to work toward valuable personal or collective objectives. Social change efforts are severely hampered when people feel that working together won’t improve their circumstances. The belief that adversity can’t be overcome is something we fight hard to resist. But if we reach that demoralizing conclusion anyway, its effects can be paralyzing and difficult to reverse, and warmongers use this to their advantage.

For instance, the “We’ll All Be Helpless” mind game is one way that war profiteers appeal to helplessness in order to win over to the public’s support. They warn us that if we fail to follow their guidance on purported national security matters, the result will be dire circumstances from which the country may be unable to ever escape. In short, we’ll be much worse off, and without the capacity to undo the damage. The threat that so upsets advocates of endless war may be a proposal to restrict domestic surveillance; or an effort to intensify diplomatic overtures rather than military interventions; or a plan to place limits on runaway Pentagon spending; or calls to reduce our nuclear arsenal—all reasonable paths to protecting human rights and encouraging peace. Unfortunately, prospects of future helplessness are often frightening enough that even deeply flawed arguments against worthwhile recommendations can seem persuasive to an apprehensive public.

At the same time, the war machine works to disempower its critics with a second helplessness appeal: the “Resistance Is Futile” mind game. The message here is simple. We’re in charge and that’s not going to change. Innumerable lobbyists, high-tech displays of “shock and awe” weaponry, and not-so-subtle carrots and sticks with our elected officials are used to create an aura of invincibility against anti-war efforts that aim to moderate the military-industrial complex’s outsized footprints and profits. They work to demoralize, sideline, ostracize, threaten, and intimidate those who seek to restrain them. This ploy works if we’re convinced that we can’t succeed against the war profiteers, because then our change efforts quickly grind to a halt or never get off the ground.

Note from Kathie MM: Visit Engaging Peace Friday for the final post in Dr. Eidelson’s current series. And think activism.