How Does Wealth Affect Someone's Compassion?

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How does wealth affect someone's compassion?
The compassionate behavior of rich people may be different to that of poor people. Usually, such behavior is dictated by the socio-economic status of the individual. Wealthy people are said to be less compassionate and likely to show less empathy to the less fortunate, but the poor people are said to be more generous, they are likely to sympathize with those who are suffering.
Wealth has different definitions, which are dictated by the context; in economics, wealth refers to things that have exchange or monetary value attached to them. It may also be defined as all things that posses the utility factor and can be exchanged for consideration. Wealth is a state of being prosperous of rich. Wealthy people are rich people who are said to be in possession of valuable property or in having large sums of money. Conversely, compassion may be defined as a feeling, sympathizing or being merciful to those who suffer a misfortune. Compassionate people will show sympathy and sorrow if any person is befallen by misfortune and they will express the desire to alleviate the misfortune. Compassion is simply a feeling of pity and distress to those who are suffering and showing a deep desire to end the suffering.
Studies conducted by various scholars in world have proved beyond doubt that wealth can have psychological effects. More wealthy people find it difficult to freely connect with other people; they often show less empathy to the point of dehumanizing others who are bellow their status. Rich people are likely to be less generous and charitable. They also show less sympathy to those who are in trouble and they make no effort to bring any solution.
Money is wealth, but when people get so much money, they sometimes become insensitive to their environment. They stop caring on other peoples’ welfare. Wealth people are always pursuing the goal of personal satisfaction by amassing too much to money for themselves without minding the less fortunate. People who are less wealth are said to be more compassionate unlike their counterparts, the rich (Farrar, Robinson and Sener).
Money changes how one values their time and effort; a person may be motivated to complete a particular task because of the gain they expect to get from it. The motivation to complete or per take a task may be due to the social value or the business value one has; for instance, a philanthropic person may do something with all their effort with the motive of helping the whole society. Another person may refuse to do something even if it is meant to benefit the whole society, but if he or she is promised some money on completing the task, they will do the job very swiftly. Studies show that workers who are well paid deliver excellent results unlike the underpaid workers. This is ultimate prove that money alters people performance and behavior.
Money may create self-sufficiency feeling, if people are promised money to partake certain task, they will do it without seeking help from any other person because money is motivating them. If the same task is given to different group of people and no money is promised, they will do the job but they are likely to seek more assistance from the instructors, and this show the ability of money to change behavior. Where people are not promised any consideration, they will act with lots of compassion as they will embrace teamwork and consultation, unlike where there is money factor, people tend to be self sufficient, and they focus on individual effort to win the highest price on their own. When the goal of completing a task is money, the activity are carried on in an haphazard manner, without much care, since the main aim of the participants is to get the money, not to satisfy the job. This behavior is not exhibited by the people who do certain job with different aim, like for social benefit, in this, people may be more careful knowing that their actions will affect large number of people who depend on those services. Therefore, it is evident that money lowers the compassion of an individual and increases the self-sufficiency and individualism.
Wealth makes people self-centered. This is a case where a person considers their welfare first before that of the others who are affected by their actions. Rich people tend to belief that wealth is genetic, that is, their genes are associated with wealth, they hold to the belief that their identity influences them to be rich. Some studies reviewed that, wealth people beliefs that being rich is determined by circumstances, they hold to the belief that they are entitled to riches because of their actions and the way they behave. The study also showed that, wealth people belief that the poor are born to be poor and they will never get rich since poverty is what they deserve (Orman). Rich people belief that life is always fair and gives people according to their behavior and the class they fit in.
The issue of ethics is also another evidence of the effect of money on people’s behavior. Studies show that wealthiest people are more likely to be involved in unethical practices, for instance, when paying taxes, they may be tempted to cut some amount or lay when filling them to increase their wealth. The cases reported in the roads, those driving classic cars or when wealth people are driving along the city roads, show less concern to the pedestrians; they have no regard to those who are using the road together with them. Wealth people are likely to break the rules as they always think that they can get themselves out of the problem using the money. When caught committing any offence they will bribe the officers and then get scot-free. Research has shown that children of the wealth people are more likely to abuse drugs, and distribute the drugs to the children of poor people; this shows the margin to which wealth people lack the compassion. The behavior exhibited by the wealth people is assumed self-maximization, where they will work out a task as long as it is meant to improve their status. They are will do anything in a project as long as the project is likely to increase their wealth. It has been proved that the wealth make very good business managers since they are always likely to work more hard to benefit maximum from the project, and therefore this makes them easier to deliver in a task. However, the main aim of this is that they are only after increasing their wealth and not for the welfare of others, during the management period, they tend to disregard their subjects and they will not listening to their assistants who those are below them. Wealth mangers are mostly concerned with the results, they pay very little attention to workers welfare, as they belief that the business aim is to make profit and not a social entity (Farrar, Robinson and Sener). Employees in these firms are likely to suffer psychologically as their welfare not looked into.
There is an issue of addiction, which occurs mostly to people who are successful in their businesses or the areas of work, if a person does a job and gets a positive outcome, especially money, and they will be motivated to work even harder to get more. This behavior may become an addictive one as it done routinely. People who become addicted to money making may have strained relationship with other people as they tend to focus on the gain and not the well-being of their immediate surroundings. Preoccupation with money renders someone less hospital as they belief that time they spent with others is wasted and instead they need to be making money. These people also tend to have a bad relationship even with their own family since they focus a lot on the money. They may also brew enmity in the family as they belief that close relationship with their family members will make them lose their money as they will benefit them. Money may render an individual inhumane if they are fully preoccupied by it.
Researches done before have proved that money can change any person regardless whether they inherited it from parents or guardian or even f they worked hard to get rich, it will change their behavior at some point in life. These effects are likely to be negative, for instance lack of compassion, isolation, there is the issues of ethics deterioration, and the conflict exhibited by the classes. One can avoid these effects by being more charitable, that is donating some wealth to the needy and engaging you in some volunteering programs that are aimed at benefiting the less fortunate. Expanding your friendship by freely mingling with friends from all social classes with discrimination or isolation, and this will diversify your view of life as you will experience the life in all dimensions. Though money may change people, the degree to which this change occurs is said to vary in comparison to the person. The change may be affected by the social economic status one is living in, the age, educational background of person, race, gender and the geographical location one is in. the attitude towards wealth is all what matters in ones behavior when they get rich, but money cannot change the genetically composition of an individual, or the identity.
Rich people justify the fact that they deserve, they are convinced beyond reasonable doubt that they deserve to be rich. The rich may do anything to always be seen successful, they can never be defeated, for example if it is a competition in an electoral sit, wealth people will rather cheat so as to take the honors since they do not want to be viewed as losers. After winning even if they used dubious means they will boast on their efforts and how they won. This behavior shows the uncompassionate nature which is brought about by money, though money is not an evil thing but those who posses more than they require will always exhibit some strange behavior, which is different from their real character, which they had before they landed to money world. The rich may be rude to the poor, especially where they are participating in an event that both parties are involved. For example, in a football match between the children from lower economic class and the upper economic class, that is the have and they have not, the children of the rich parents may injure the poor family players, and go unpunished, since they know their parents will always bail them out. This is uncompassionate behavior of the highest order, which is fueled by the pride. This shows that the wealth are likely to take advantage of the situation to oppress the poor, they will feel that they deserve the win, or they deserve the good things alone.
Those who make less money have higher affinity to giving than those who make much more. Studies conducted by the “Chronicle of Philanthropy” in the year 2012, proved that the households which earned about fifty thousand dollars to seventy five thousand dollars were more willing to give approximately eight percent of their entire income to the charity (Bidgood). Accordingly, those that made about one hundred thousand dollars were willing to give to charity approximately four percent of their wealth to the charity. This was much less as compared to those earned less income than this group. The study also showed that those who earned two hundred thousand dollars gave approximately three pe...