Human beings don’t like income inequality, but until now scientists haven’t really known how deep that dislike goes. It turns out the aversion is brain-deep: A team of researchers, using functional MRI technology, has found that the “the reward centers in the human brain respond more strongly when a poor person receives a financial reward than when a rich person does.” Furthermore, even rich people’s brains seem to crave equality. “In the experiment, people who started out rich had a stronger reaction to other people getting money than to themselves getting money,” said Colin Camerer, one of the study‘s coauthors. “In other words, their brains liked it when others got money more than they liked it when they themselves got money.” [%comments]
This is Your Brain on Income Inequality
TAGS: income, inequality
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Humans beings also like fighting wars, taking drugs and worshiping magical beings in the sky.
@Bret
You say “all people respond to incentives… are we going to give people an incentive to not work or an incentive to work.”
I dont disagree that redistribution has implications for incentives however surely we should strike a balance between the blunting of incentives provided by an income tax and the welfare gains seen to society as a result of the government allocated spending of the funds?
Furthermore, income inequality is strongly correlated with several social ills such as crime rates, drug abuse, poor health outcome ect as discussed in the spirit level”. So surely, as with any externality a Pigovian tax is in order.
Finally, dont you think allowing the rich to redistribute is a pretty tenuous way of doing so (and doesn’t your argument rely on the distribution of resources via the market being somehow fair, that is presuming your taking a libertarian stance?) Its hardly reliable therefore making long standing remittance programs difficult and i very much doubt that the figures donated would be comparable to the amount raised by taxes for the same purpose.
@Don
Income equality has never and will never be achieved by taxation and redistribution of wealth. If you think that politicians are truly working towards an ever-equal society, you’re crazy. In no time in history has there ever been a perfectly equal society, there will always be the rich and the poor, it’s human nature.
What I believe we should strive for is not a perfectly equal society (as nice as that would be) but an ever raising floor that the poor can stand on. This has been achieved over the past 200+ years through conservative principles and freedom, not taxation and ‘enslavement’ of citizens. (By the way, don’t assume I consider Bush/GOP as conservative – I mean REAL conservative principles).
The poor in America are better off than the poor in any other country. Let’s continue that tradition, create an example to the world, and eventually our poor will not worry about where to find food or shelter, but instead will claim unfairness because they can’t afford the latest sports car. I look forward to a day like that, where we still have poor vs. rich (incentives are important), but the poor have everything they truly “need”.
That sounds like a parenting effect. Would the same rich people’s brains still like it, if the money given to the poor was their own?
Income equality isn’t going to be achieved by government welfare programs either, Don. Charity helps people get back on their feet whereas many people, not all mind you, use welfare to keep from trying to better themselves.
Personally I don’t see it ever being equal, no matter how you try to even the playing field there will always be those who are go getters and those who want to sit back and be spoon fed.
It squares because government action was not mentioned. Everybody wants everybody to succeed and for everybody to succeed the government has to stay out of the way.
I’ve been wondering about how one might apply neurological and behavioral research exploding in economics right now to poverty and income inequality. I’ve seen some, but very little until this paper.
The next step is to see if the neurological response to inequality has a behavioral counterpart; i.e. if people act less rationally under perceived inequality.
Did anyone think their preference wouldn’t appear in the brain? Maybe they should have scanned the invisible preference elf instead. In other news, your brain also knows if you like chocolate, action movies, and attractive people.