Episode 6: Wisdom, Class & Inequality (with Michael Kraus)

If a typical white family in the US has 100 dollars, how many dollars does a typical black US family have? Wrong! Why are we so bad at guessing levels of inequality in society? How much of a role does your class play in preventing wise decision-making? Are upper and middle-class people especially bad at taking wise decisions? Why does more education equate to less wise reasoning in interpersonal affairs? And just how good are we at spotting someone’s class from their shoes or even eyes? Michael Kraus joins Igor and Charles to tease economic fact from fiction, discussing accuracy of class signalling, implications of new marshmallow-based research, woeful underestimations of inequality, and the roots of our convenient blindness. Igor breaks down surprising research suggesting that we should both pay more attention to how working class people approach interpersonal clashes and be wary of disruptive hipster beards, Michael forces us to look at the dark underbelly of the American dream, and Charles has questions about Jay-Z and the validity of cockney impersonations as a measurement tool. Welcome to Episode 6.

Special Guest: Michael Kraus.

Links:

• Michael Kraus, Yale School of Management
• Americans misperceive racial economic equality: Kraus, Rucker, Richeson (2017)
• The Racial Wealth Gap - Explained - Vox/Netflix — The racial wealth gap is where yesterday’s injustice becomes today’s inequality. And it’s growing. Episode three of Vox’s new Netflix series explores why.
• Yale Insights - Michael Kraus: How Fair is American Society? (Youtube)
• Social affiliation in same-class and cross-class interactions: Côté, Kraus, Carpenter, Piff, Beermann, Keltner (2017)
• Signs of Social Class: The Experience of Economic Inequality in Everyday Life: Kraus, Won Park, Tan (2017)
• The Visibility of Social Class From Facial Cues: Bjornsdottir, Rule (2017)
• The Social Stratification of (R) in New York City Department Stores: Labov (1972)
• Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs by Lauren A. Rivera (review): Smith (2017)
• Social class and wise reasoning about interpersonal conflicts across regions, persons and situations: Brienza, Grossmann (2017)
• Cognition in harsh and unpredictable environments: Frankenhuis, Panchanathan, Nettle (2015)
• Social Class Culture Cycles: How Three Gateway Contexts Shape Selves and Fuel Inequality: Stephens, Markus, Phillips (2014)
• Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions: Shoda, Mischel, Peake (1990)
• Revisiting the Marshmallow Test: A Conceptual Replication Investigating Links Between Early Delay of Gratification and Later Outcomes: Watts, Duncan, Quan (2018)