Susan Pinker in the Wall Street Journal:
Ms. Koo wondered whether people who started out at the bottom and achieved high status would support public policies to assist other strivers like themselves. Or, having successfully climbed the socioeconomic ladder, would they perceive upward social mobility as less difficult? “If I did it, why can’t they do it?” Ms. Koo asked rhetorically.
The research team, which included psychology professors Paul Piff at U.C. Irvine and Azim Shariff at the University of British Columbia, began with two studies designed to assess Americans’ attitudes to the rich. Six hundred randomly selected adults were asked to rate two groups: the “born rich,” who had inherited their wealth, and the “became rich,” who had earned it. Which group would be more likely to attribute poverty to external circumstances, for example, or feel empathy toward the poor?
More here.