Mind: To Read Others' Emotions, It Helps to Be Poor

In multiple experiments, people of high socioeconomic status (or people who perceived themselves to be well-off) were worse at judging other people's emotions than those of low socioeconomic status, both when looking at photographs and interacting with real people.

Kraus' earlier research has found that wealthier people are ruder than poorer people in conversations with strangers. They've also found that the poor are more generous with their wealth than the rich. Their greater empathy could be the root of that charity, Kraus said.

[In the third experiment] they asked some of the students to visualize an extraordinarily wealthy individual — someone like Bill Gates, Kraus said.

Next, the students were told to place themselves on the socioeconomic ladder, imagining their wealthy individual at the top. Thinking of the Gates-like figure triggered the students to place themselves lower on the ladder than they otherwise would have. Other students were told to imagine someone completely destitute; those students placed themselves relatively higher on the ladder.

Finally, the 81 students looked at 36 close-up photographs of eyes and judged the emotions portrayed in the pictures. Sure enough, those manipulated into seeing themselves as lower-class scored 6 percent better than those manipulated into perceiving themselves as well-off. [Emphasis added].

For the other experiments, see To Read Others' Emotions, It Helps to Be Poor by Stephanie Pappas, November 16, 2010 at Live Science.