Important new scientific research sheds light on Charlestown behavior quirks

Science helps us understand our neighbors and ourselves

By Will Collette

It’s a scientific fact – rich people ARE dirtbags. I’ve been waiting for research like this for a long time. I no longer have to feel guilty when I rag on the 1%. It’s now scientifically proven that they deserve it, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

According to the report, rich people are more likely to “break the law while driving, take candy from children, lie in negotiation, cheat to raise their odds of winning a prize and endorse unethical behavior at work.” I’m not making this up.

Researcher Paul Piff told Bloomberg News “It’s not that the rich are innately bad, but as you rise in the ranks -- whether as a person or a nonhuman primate -- you become more self-focused. You can change that by reminding upper-class people of the needs of others. That may not be their default, but have them do it is sufficient to increase their patterns of altruistic behavior.”

I can just imagine the Charlestown Citizens Alliance or RI Statewide Coalition holding seminars for their supporters.

We don’t know what we don’t know. Here’s some research that would make a great sci-fi movie for Keanu Reeves to revive his career. According to research out of Cornell University, incompetent people are too stupid to realize just how incompetent they are. 

Researchers David Dunning and Justin Kruger have run years of tests on people to measure what they actually know in a broad range of skill areas AND what those same people think they know. They found that people who actually know very little really believe they know a lot. Indeed, their confidence in their own skills almost matches the confidence of people who actually have good skills.

Almost everyone thinks they are doing better than average even when their actual knowledge or skill is terrible. Only high-end achievers think of themselves as less competent than they actually are.

Researcher Dunning believes the inability to know when you know very little contributes to many of society’s problems, including climate change denialism. "Many people don't have training in science, and so they may very well misunderstand the science. But because they don't have the knowledge to evaluate it, they don't realize how off their evaluations might be," he said. It also leads to bad decisions in politics. 

Winners tend to be “bad” winners. A new study shows that winners tend to become more aggressive and abusive toward those they defeated.

"It seems that people have a tendency to stomp down on those they have defeated, to really rub it in," said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University. "People were more aggressive when they were better off than when they were worse off than others."

His advice: "Losers need to watch out." I would add that so do obnoxious winners.

Blogger’s death a case of deadly anger and stress? The recent death of ultra-conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart may be another case of death caused by bottled-up rage. Breitbart’s bombastic anger made him famous but may also have killed him. Studies link high levels of anger in young men (under 55) to developing premature cardiovascular disease.

Personally, I think the fact that I have made it to age 62 is due to my legendary mellowness, good nature and pleasant disposition.

If only Andrew Breitbart had taken propranolol. British researchers have found that a commonly prescribed drug propranolol (brand name Inderal), a “beta-blocker” used to lower blood pressure for heart disease patients, affects the heart in a different way. The researchers’ findings, published in the journal Psychopharmacology, show that patients also displayed lower “implicit racist attitudes” as well. 


The researchers caution that this is not a pill that cures racism, but that perhaps by reducing the heart rate, it may cause a drop in the types of anxiety that trigger these “implicit racist” impulses. Says study co-author Julian Savulescu cautions that propranolol is not a pill to cure racism. "Biological research aiming to make people morally better has a dark history." 

Feels like an elephant

In Charlestown, I think this one applies more to ticks. Researchers at Ohio State University have found that the more afraid a person is of spiders, the more likely they are to imagine a spider is bigger than it really is.

Ohio State's Professor Michael Vasey believes "It is certainly very plausible that the same sort of perceptual exaggeration as a function of fear would operate in those sorts of circumstances." Vasey notes other instances where fear makes a person exaggerate the size of the threat – like almost getting hit by a bus or encountering a snake.

Or having a tick crawling on your neck.