The Shocking Truth About How Wealth Changes People

The Shocking Truth About How Wealth Changes People, narrated by Paul Piff, delves into the profound and often surprising ways that money impacts human behavior, relationships, and values. Drawing from compelling research, this video reveals how wealth can shape our minds and interactions with others, often in ways we don’t expect. It challenges viewers to reconsider their perceptions of money and its influence on empathy, compassion, and morality.

Paul Piff explores the psychological effects of wealth, showing how an increase in resources can lead to a decrease in empathy and concern for others. From shifts in generosity to changes in the way people perceive fairness and power, the findings are both eye-opening and thought-provoking. The video examines how societal structures and personal wealth intertwine, often creating behaviors and mindsets that prioritize individual gain over collective well-being.

Through vivid examples and scientific insights, The Shocking Truth About How Wealth Changes People uncovers the hidden dynamics of privilege and power. It highlights how wealth can create a sense of entitlement, detachment, and even moral disengagement. At the same time, it encourages viewers to reflect on the ways we can counteract these tendencies by fostering connection, humility, and a sense of shared humanity.

This video is a must-watch for anyone curious about the intersection of money, psychology, and society. Whether you’re examining your own relationship with wealth or looking to understand its broader social implications, Paul Piff’s insights will leave you with a deeper understanding of how money shapes us—and how we can use that awareness to create a more compassionate world.

For a moment, think about playing a game of Monopoly. Except this game’s been rigged, and you’ve got the upper hand. You’ve got more money, more opportunities to move around the board, and more access to resources. How might that experience of being a privileged player in a rigged game change the way you think about yourself and regard that other player? 

We ran a study to look at exactly that question. We brought in more than 100 pairs of strangers into the lab, and with the flip of a coin, randomly assigned one of the two to be a rich player in a rigged game. 

One of the really interesting and dramatic patterns that we observed begin to emerge was that the rich players actually started to become ruder toward the other person – less and less sensitive to the plight of those poor, poor players, and more and more demonstrative of their material success, more likely to showcase how well they’re doing. 

And they became far less attuned to all those different features of the situation — including that flip of a coin that had randomly gotten them into that privileged position in the first place. 

What we’ve been finding is that as a person’s levels of wealth increase, their feelings of compassion and empathy go down, and their feelings of entitlement, of deservingness, and their ideology of self-interest increases. It’s actually wealthier individuals who are more likely to moralize greed being good, and that the pursuit of self-interest is favorable and moral. 

We’ve run other studies finding that wealthier individuals are more likely to lie in negotiations, endorse unethical behavior at work like taking bribes and lying to customers. 

I don’t mean to suggest that it’s only wealthy people who show these patterns of behavior. I think that we all, in our day-to-day, minute-by-minute lives, struggle with these competing motivations of when or if to put our own interests above the interests of other people. But what we’re finding is that the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to pursue a vision of personal success of achievement and accomplishment to the detriment of others around you. 

We’re at unprecedented levels of economic inequality. Economic inequality is something we should all be concerned about. 

There’s a lot of really compelling research showcasing the range of things that are undermined as economic inequality gets worse. Social mobility, physical health, social trust, all go down as inequality goes up. Similarly, things like violence, imprisonment and punishment, are exacerbated as economic inequality increases. 

And if it’s the case, as we’ve been finding, that the wealthier you are, the more entitled you feel to that wealth, and the more likely you are to prioritize your own interests above the interests of other people, well then there’s no reason to think that those patterns will change. 

This cascade of self-perpetuating, negative effects could seem like something that’s spun out of control, and there’s nothing we can do about it. But we’ve been finding that small psychological interventions, small changes to people’s values can restore levels of egalitarianism and empathy. 

In one study, we had people watch a brief video about childhood poverty that served as a reminder of the needs of others in the world around them. We looked at how willing people were to offer up their own time to a stranger who was in distress. After watching this video, rich people became just as generous of their own time to help out this stranger as someone who’s poor, suggesting that these differences are not innate or categorical, but are so malleable to slight changes in people’s values, and little nudges of compassion and bumps of empathy. 

Humanity’s greatest advances are not in its discoveries but in how those discoveries are applied to reduce inequity.

Paul K. Piff, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of psychology and social behavior at Irvine, where he also directs the Social Inequality and Cohesion Lab. Dr. Piff’s research examines the origins of human kindness and cooperation, and the social consequences of economic inequality. In 2015, Dr. Piff was designated as a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science in recognition of his outstanding early contributions to the field of psychology.

“Usually wealthier people help out the poor to feed their own pride.”

“An evenly calibrated moral compass is either afforded, or it isn’t. Many can’t afford to be concerned about anyone else’s problems but their own, while many others could afford to solve everyone else’s problems.”

“The cult of the self that is capitalism as we know it. Time for a new system. You should have these people play Anti-monopoly”

“Excellent. I cannot add any words that could successfully clarify or expand upon the topics so insightfully presented by the author of the video.”

“Monopoly was literally created to show how wealth tends inevitably to polarize. Look it up on Wikipedia. Think about it: “You have to spend money to make money.” So wealth attracts wealth, like a black hole. The problem isn’t that the super-rich are insufficiently charitable, the problem is that they are literally thieves and exploiters gaming a defective system.”

“This must get more views.”

“This is really sad. Wealth have caused these people to lose their humanity. What’s really sad is many of these rich people were once poor themselves? You can feel this coldness in our society today and many of these people are two paychecks from being homeless themselves. Nobody today has a right, rich or poor, to look down on anyone. We all need to take care of our neighbors.”

“People aren’t the problem ,the system is, capitalism must be done away with.”

“Numerous other studies have been done that also show exactly this, to the point that those with extreme wealth start to lose their ability to read normal social facial cues. There are numerous studies that show different aspects of this. Here’s a few: Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior Piff, et. al. 2012. – Social Class, Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy Krauss, et. al.. 2010 – False Consciousness or Class Awareness? Local Income Inequality, Personal Economic Position, and Belief in American Meritocracy Newman, et. al. 2015″

Check out the research that supports this video here.

Music by:

• Flutter – A. Taylor
• Ivory Coast – Judah Earl featuring Chris Coleman