Those d*mned altruistic rich people

[Skeptical]

Next time you're tempted to rail over how all rich people are evil...

S

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Lost letter experiment suggests wealthy London neighborhoods are 'more altruistic'
August 15, 2012

Neighbourhood income deprivation has a strong negative effect on altruistic behaviour when measured by a 'lost letter' experiment, according to new UCL research published today in PLOS ONE.

Researchers from UCL Anthropology used the lost letter technique to measure altruism across 20 London neighbourhoods by dropping 300 letters on the pavement and recording whether they arrived at their destination. The stamped letters were addressed by hand to a study author's home address with a gender neutral name, and were dropped face-up and during rain free weekdays.

The results show a strong negative effect of neighbourhood income deprivation on altruistic behaviour, with an average of 87% of letters dropped in the wealthier neighbourhoods being returned compared to only an average 37% return rate in poorer neighbourhoods.

Co-author Jo Holland said: "This is the first large scale study investigating cooperation in an urban environment using the lost letter technique. This technique, first used in the 1960s by the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram, remains one of the best ways of measuring truly altruistic behaviour, as returning the letter doesn't benefit that person and actually incurs the small hassle of taking the letter to a post box.

Co-author Professor Ruth Mace added: "Our study attempts to understand how the socio-economic characteristics of a neighbourhood affect the likelihood of people in a neighbourhood acting altruistically towards a stranger. The results show a clear trend, with letters dropped in the poorest neighbourhoods having 91% lower odds of being returned than letters dropped in the wealthiest neighbourhoods. This suggests that those living in poor neighbourhoods are less inclined to behave altruistically toward their neighbours."

As well as measuring the number of letters returned, the researchers also looked at how other neighbourhood characteristics may help to explain the variation in altruistic behaviour – including ethnic composition and population density – but did not find them to be good predictors of lost letter return.

Corresponding author Antonio Silva said: "The fact that ethnic composition does not play a role on the likelihood of a letter being returned is particularly interesting, as other studies have suggested that ethnic mixing negatively affects social cohesion, but in our sampled London neighbourhoods this does not appear to be true.

"The level of altruism observed in a population is likely to vary according to its context. Our hypothesis that area level socio-economic characteristics could determine the levels of altruism found in individuals living in an area is confirmed by our results. Our overall findings replicate and expand on previous studies which use similar methodology.

"We show in this study that individuals living in poor neighbourhoods are less altruistic than individuals in wealthier neighbourhoods. However, the effect of income deprivation may be confounded by crime, as the poorer neighbourhoods tend to have higher rates crime which may lead to people in those neighbourhoods being generally more suspicious and therefore less likely to pick up a lost letter.

"Further research should focus on attempting to disentangle these two factors, possibly by comparing equally deprived neighbourhoods with different levels of crime. Although this study uses only one measure of altruism and therefore we should be careful in interpreting these findings, it does give us an interesting perspective on altruism in an urban context and provides a sound experimental model on which to base future studies."

More information: Lost Letter Measure of Variation in Altruistic Behaviour in 20 Neighbourhoods, PLOS ONE, dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043294

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-08-lost-letter-wealthy-london-neighborhoods.html#jCp

[Darrell]

what a dumb experiment! what high schooler came up with this? and who was dumb enough to think it meaningful?

clearly the poor folks were so hungry that they thought the letters to be manna from the trickle down miracle santa and ate them.

[Antrikshaadmi]

Originally Posted by Darrell

what a dumb experiment! what high schooler came up with this? and who was dumb enough to think it meaningful?

clearly the poor folks were so hungry that they thought the letters to be manna from the trickle down miracle santa and ate them.

Because how you became rich doesn't matter. Even if you inherited Gotti's money or you start a cult based on the ten commandments just to kill and steal from people who join it.

On March 17, 2000, over a thousand members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God were murdered by their church leaders in Uganda.

Altruism is when you have a lot of money and you have less reasons to kill and steal for money with God's name on it because the ancestors you inherited from did it for you.

[dr wu23]

Originally Posted by Darrell

what a dumb experiment! what high schooler came up with this? and who was dumb enough to think it meaningful?

clearly the poor folks were so hungry that they thought the letters to be manna from the trickle down miracle santa and ate them.

that sounds about 'right'.....

and I agree...what does it have to do with anything when it comes to how the rich in politics are screwing both the middle class and poor class?

[dr wu23]

Originally Posted by Skeptical

Next time you're tempted to rail over how all rich people are evil...

S

---

Lost letter experiment suggests wealthy London neighborhoods are 'more altruistic'
August 15, 2012

Neighbourhood income deprivation has a strong negative effect on altruistic behaviour when measured by a 'lost letter' experiment, according to new UCL research published today in PLOS ONE.

Researchers from UCL Anthropology used the lost letter technique to measure altruism across 20 London neighbourhoods by dropping 300 letters on the pavement and recording whether they arrived at their destination. The stamped letters were addressed by hand to a study author's home address with a gender neutral name, and were dropped face-up and during rain free weekdays.

The results show a strong negative effect of neighbourhood income deprivation on altruistic behaviour, with an average of 87% of letters dropped in the wealthier neighbourhoods being returned compared to only an average 37% return rate in poorer neighbourhoods.

Co-author Jo Holland said: "This is the first large scale study investigating cooperation in an urban environment using the lost letter technique. This technique, first used in the 1960s by the American social psychologist Stanley Milgram, remains one of the best ways of measuring truly altruistic behaviour, as returning the letter doesn't benefit that person and actually incurs the small hassle of taking the letter to a post box.

Co-author Professor Ruth Mace added: "Our study attempts to understand how the socio-economic characteristics of a neighbourhood affect the likelihood of people in a neighbourhood acting altruistically towards a stranger. The results show a clear trend, with letters dropped in the poorest neighbourhoods having 91% lower odds of being returned than letters dropped in the wealthiest neighbourhoods. This suggests that those living in poor neighbourhoods are less inclined to behave altruistically toward their neighbours."

As well as measuring the number of letters returned, the researchers also looked at how other neighbourhood characteristics may help to explain the variation in altruistic behaviour – including ethnic composition and population density – but did not find them to be good predictors of lost letter return.

Corresponding author Antonio Silva said: "The fact that ethnic composition does not play a role on the likelihood of a letter being returned is particularly interesting, as other studies have suggested that ethnic mixing negatively affects social cohesion, but in our sampled London neighbourhoods this does not appear to be true.

"The level of altruism observed in a population is likely to vary according to its context. Our hypothesis that area level socio-economic characteristics could determine the levels of altruism found in individuals living in an area is confirmed by our results. Our overall findings replicate and expand on previous studies which use similar methodology.

"We show in this study that individuals living in poor neighbourhoods are less altruistic than individuals in wealthier neighbourhoods. However, the effect of income deprivation may be confounded by crime, as the poorer neighbourhoods tend to have higher rates crime which may lead to people in those neighbourhoods being generally more suspicious and therefore less likely to pick up a lost letter.

"Further research should focus on attempting to disentangle these two factors, possibly by comparing equally deprived neighbourhoods with different levels of crime. Although this study uses only one measure of altruism and therefore we should be careful in interpreting these findings, it does give us an interesting perspective on altruism in an urban context and provides a sound experimental model on which to base future studies."

More information: Lost Letter Measure of Variation in Altruistic Behaviour in 20 Neighbourhoods, PLOS ONE, dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0043294

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2012-08-lost-le...hoods.html#jCp

You know skep...no one has said the rich are 'evil' at least not me....but the bottom line is that the rich can afford to be altruistic.

[Antrikshaadmi]

Originally Posted by dr wu23

You know skep...no one has said the rich are 'evil' at least not me....but the bottom line is that the rich can afford to be altruistic.

Are Rich People Unethical? - ABC News

Are rich people more unethical? - CNN.com

Are Rich People Unethical? - Yahoo! News

Rich people more unethical, likely to cheat and steal, study finds

Rich people 'more likely to lie, cheat'

Richard Lewis Ludwig is a 54-year-old dentist from Okemos, Michigan. By his own admission, he's worth $3 to $4 million. But his personal character is now being traded on the New York Stock Exchange for just 13 cents a share after a trip to Florida...

Police say Ludwig was in Davenport, Florida over the weekend for his son's baseball game when he found a lost credit card in a grocery store parking lot. But instead of being a good little rich man and turning the card in, Ludwig decided someone else could pay for his pizza run.

He went to a nearby Mia Pizza Pasta Kitchen and ordered two large pies -- extra olives, please -- running up a $40 tab on the card he'd found.

The card, it turns out, was owned by Harrun Majeed, a military vet turned college student. He'd lost it while shopping that very evening. So when he got home and discovered it missing, he got on the horn with the credit card company to cancel it. That's when the operator noticed that someone had just used the card at Mia's.

Harrun called the cops. When they arrived, Ludwig was still waiting for his two pizzas.

The shitbag actually had $250 in his wallet at the time, but he apparently decided it would be better if a college student to sprang for supper. When police asked him if he was having financial problems, he laughed and said "absolutely not." That's when Ludwig bragged that he was worth between $3 and $4 million.

Originally Posted by Antrikshaadmi

Bottom line: ethics are philosophies. You can't fill your bank account with philosophies.

[Darrell]

antri:

... funny and pathetic story. Thanks for posting it.

Btw, I admire people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Not because they are rich; but because they really understand why it is necessary to give back to society. You can even include Ted Turner in that group. People with a good heart!!!!!

On the other hand, I wouldn't give you two cents for Donald Trump. just saying ...

[Antrikshaadmi]

Now I'm not lumping all rich people together and stating they are all the same like Jesus did talking about camels passing through eyes of needles. I'm not a Christian so what Jesus said about slaves also doesn't mean anything to me.

"And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes." ~ Jesus

I take it my master is whoever has more money than me in accordance with religious traditions of the majority of primates. Babe te meme te baiko *slap*




http://www.google.com/search?q=Selec...n+spirituality

[Skeptical]

Antrik - I might be more impressed by the study cited in your links if it weren't conducted by UC Berkeley - not exactly a place known for being non-partisan. As for the millionaire who used someone else's credit card, I never said there were no scumbags with money. Idiocy knows no socio-economic boundaries.

You may make fun of the British study but their testing method is sound enough. And, if you read to the bottom of the article, you saw that further study was suggested to determine if other factors may better explain the differences in behavior.

BTW, why am I not surprised that ABC and Yahoo would jump on the UC Berkeley study? You can be damn sure they would NEVER carry a story on the British findings.

S

[Miss Deetective]

Rich people aren't evil.....just greedy....imo.