The actual studied results are straightforward and intuitive: whether you are rich or poor, humans are excellent at rationalizing their own merit. So for a ric

The actual studied results are straightforward and intuitive: whether you are rich or poor, humans are excellent at rationalizing their own merit. So for a rich person of course they want to believe that their wealth comes from their own agency, and for a poor person of course they want to believe that wealth is completely random. That's all fine and good, but attaching the editorial that the rich don't understand the poor kind of bothers me. Sure it's true in aggregate, and I agree with the implication that more privileged groups could stand to have more empathy for less privileged groups, but going a layer deeper I think it does individuals a real disservice to tie "choice mindset" to a moral failing. The reason it bothers me is because taking responsibility of your own choices is just a better way to live; whether or not it makes you rich it will certainly improve your relationships and mental health. And of course I understand some folks have more choice than others, but in practice I've seen plenty of rich people exhibiting victim mentality just as I've seen many poor people make hard choices and own them. In fact I'd be curious to see a longitudinal study that tested the hypotheses that poor people with a "choice mindset" are more upwardly mobile, and rich people with a "privilege mindset" are more downwardly mobile.