When someone has more money there are changes in their behaviors

1) When someone has more money, there are changes in their behaviors. The people who have more money, tend to become self-centered and focus more on themselves and less on the people around them that are lower in the hierarchical structure. Having money gives people a sense of entitlement where even if they do something wrong, they feel like they won’t get in trouble or can just pay their way out of it. An example of this in the TED talk was where people in the study who drove more expensive cars, didn’t stop in the crosswalk but all of the cheapest cars did. In the talk, Paul Piff mentioned that there just needs to be small psychological changes for rich people to show benefits of cooperation, advantage of community, and compassion. Like I previously mentioned, they get so wrapped up in themselves and their money they forget about others, which is why they just need a little reminder of the needs of others. In the talk, they mentioned showing a short video about childhood poverty to the rich folks and after 46 seconds, the rich people became just as generous as the poor people. It seems like maybe poorer people are use to having less money which is why when someone offers them money, they are more likely to give a portion of it away because it’s money that they typically don’t have therefore they won’t miss it. Overall, I think money has a big impact on people and society. As economic inequality continues to get worse, it affects social mobility, community and social life, trust expectancy, educational performance, and physical health. Randomly choosing people in the game of monopoly to be rich compares to real life; some people are just randomly born into wealth whereas others have to work much harder for any money they have. I think that people who are born into wealth are the ones to have more negative behaviors because it's always been given to them and they've never experienced having less money. The ones who have to work for their money, retain compassion and empathy for others with less money because they likely have experienced that at some point in their lives. 2) I thought this TED talk was very interesting; although it did not open my eyes to anything I had never considered before, it reinforced previous topics I have learned about. One aspect that stood out to me the most was towards the end of Paul Piff's presentation, when he discussed how economic inequalities affect our lives. He briefly touched on the part about physical health, which is a huge personal interest of mine and something I hope I can make a positive impact on in the future. There is an increased movement towards understanding determinants of health, which largely include aspects unrelated to healthcare, such as socioeconomic status. Low-income individuals may struggle to afford basic necessities, such as healthy food, safe housing, and healthcare, all of which largely affect citizens' health. Another thought I had regarding this TED talk is about the number of experiments and research his team conducted. I am not at all downplaying the work they put in, and I am sure that the conclusions they drew from their studies have real-world value to them, but I had thoughts in the back of my mind wondering if participants would have acted differently within the experiment versus outside of it. Overall, I would say that money does not make people "mean," but there may be a tendency for individuals to become more selfish.