Monopoly, Money, Privilege, & Psychology (1 Viewer)

SaintsFanInLA

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There was an experiment done with Monopoly where there were only two players. One player was designated the poor player and the other designated the rich player, this was simply determined by a coin flip. The richer player started the game with twice as much money, got to roll both dice (the poor player could only roll one die) and received twice as much money for passing Go as the poor player. So, they went around the board more times and received much more money. This experiment was to simulate privilege. This experiment was done with hundreds of players and here were some of the results as the game wore on:
1. The richer players became ruder and would utter obnoxious things to the poorer player.
2. The richer players would become louder. They would loudly tap their pieces on the board as they moved and spoke at higher volumes.
3. The richer players would openly display visual cues of dominance.
4. When asked why they thought they won, ALL of the richer players thought it was because they made sound decisions in the game. NONE .... NOT ONE of them attributed their winning the game to their privilege given at the start and ALL throughout the game.

The final analysis was that people would make ALL sorts of excuses to preserve and justify their privilege. This psychology explains SO MUCH of what is going on today. SO MUCH.

 
Monopoly game ends in cursing, insults, derision and rude, obnoxious behavior from intolerant, boorish jerks?

So, like, a typical game of Monopoly, then...
 
There are many empathetic, philanthropic rich people.

That behavior could be partially explained by the fact that it is an experiment within a pre-established competitive, short-term game. You could probably take two people and make them play 1 on 1 basketball, and spot one of them half of the points needed to win and make the other use a bigger ball, and see similar behavior.

But I don't think life is necessarily like that. For some it is, surely. There are many butt crevasses with money. And some probably became that way after getting money - I'm not doubting that the premise happens with some people. I just think the broad generalization that "money makes people mean, here's the proof" is pretty flimsy.
 
There are many empathetic, philanthropic rich people.

That behavior could be partially explained by the fact that it is an experiment within a pre-established competitive, short-term game. You could probably take two people and make them play 1 on 1 basketball, and spot one of them half of the points needed to win and make the other use a bigger ball, and see similar behavior.

But I don't think life is necessarily like that. For some it is, surely. There are many butt crevasses with money. And some probably became that way after getting money - I'm not doubting that the premise happens with some people. I just think the broad generalization that "money makes people mean, here's the proof" is pretty flimsy.

So many times psychological/social scientists pretend hundreds of other variables in life don't matter or have no influence and pretend that they have definitive evidence of their claims

Reading this you would think that poor people are never butt crevasses

This sounds a lot like confirmation bias by the people setting this up and possibly the OP
 
So when are you giving away all of your money to be a good person?
I have zero problem with anyone being rich. And I am NOT saying that every, all, or most rich people are evil a-holes. I found it interesting in this short experiment, that human psychology immediately began to erode empathy and started the self-serving narrative that privilege didn't play a part in the success.
There are many empathetic, philanthropic rich people.

That behavior could be partially explained by the fact that it is an experiment within a pre-established competitive, short-term game. You could probably take two people and make them play 1 on 1 basketball, and spot one of them half of the points needed to win and make the other use a bigger ball, and see similar behavior.

But I don't think life is necessarily like that. For some it is, surely. There are many butt crevasses with money. And some probably became that way after getting money - I'm not doubting that the premise happens with some people. I just think the broad generalization that "money makes people mean, here's the proof" is pretty flimsy.
There are MANY empathetic rich people and MANY poor sociopaths. This isn't an all-inclusive sweeping hard-line approach to rich and poor. It's about patterns. I could say, studies show that most poor people have less education and someone could say, I know PLENTY of poor people who received college degrees and I know PLENTY of rich idiots. I think you get what I am getting at.

If you watched the video in it's entirety he goes into greater detail. Even showing studies how the richer people are the more they were prone to act entitled and break laws to benefit themselves. It's NOT an indictment on rich people, it's an indictment on the psychology of privilege. He ends the video by showing that even a short video about compassion had an affect, a very positive affect toward empathy and generosity.
 
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I have zero problem with anyone being rich. And I am NOT saying that every, all, or most rich people are evil a-holes. I found it interesting in this short experiment, that human psychology immediately began to erode empathy and started the self-serving narrative that privilege didn't play a part in the success.

If you watched the video in it's entirety he goes into greater detail. Even showing studies how the richer people are the more they were prone to act entitled and break laws to benefit themselves. It's NOT an indictment on rich people, it's an indictment on the psychology of privilege. He ends the video by showing that even a short video about compassion had an affect, a very positive affect toward empathy and generosity.

Yeah, I mean there's certainly a lot about it that doesn't seem surprising - like even well-intended empathetic rich people probably do entitled things and break rules (even if minor) that most people follow either by fear of penalty or just because they're committed to the idea that rules benefit the greater good if everyone just goes along with it.

One thing that I have really disliked seeing over the past 10 years or so is the stratification of things that used to just be part of the social lot that we were all in. For example, while First Class has always been around for commercial air travel, I don't remember that First Class used to get you a separate, semi-private security line at the airport screening so that you don't have to wait with coach folks. Seems like security lines at the airport are more like a civil service function (like the DMV) than they are like the airlines themselves.

These kinds of things reinforce what might be those natural inclinations (to believe that financial prosperity = superiority) - making it even harder for people to resist falling into.
 
There are many empathetic, philanthropic rich people.

That behavior could be partially explained by the fact that it is an experiment within a pre-established competitive, short-term game. You could probably take two people and make them play 1 on 1 basketball, and spot one of them half of the points needed to win and make the other use a bigger ball, and see similar behavior.

But I don't think life is necessarily like that. For some it is, surely. There are many butt crevasses with money. And some probably became that way after getting money - I'm not doubting that the premise happens with some people. I just think the broad generalization that "money makes people mean, here's the proof" is pretty flimsy.
You have to ask “what is the value?”
in monopoly the value is wealth/property accumulation
I think you would agree that a sizable part of the population (and not just the rich) consider this THE value irl

certainly there are rich (and other) people who find value in community enrichment (broad, catchall notion)
but, except for maybe certain parts of Tech wealth, this is the exception way more than the rule
 
Monopoly is banned in our house
Big argument in college. I was the banker. One friend was furious that two others struck a deal that ended up bankrupting him. He declared himself the winner and was bullying the other players and I wasnt having it. Lol it sounds light but it fractured the friendship for months. The argument was a symptom of bigger issues that had come to a head but Monopoly brought it out.
 
I find it hard to believe that experiment was run on hundreds of players and not a single rich player identified the reason they won was because they had an unfair advantage.
 
Monopoly = Family Fight
Sorry = Child Meltdown

Seriously though, if you have young kids (like 5 and under), do not play Sorry. If you do play it with them, don't land on their piece and send it back.
That age rang of 6 and up is actually good advice.
 

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