The Psychological Nature of Inequality

Thursday, August 21, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

In the previous meeting, we discussed how Thomas Picketty used historical financial records to show that Inequity is indeed increasing. He used national trends to forecast how individuals will fare in the future, a top-down approach.

In this week's meeting, we will look at Inequity from the bottom-up. Experiments on how Inequality affects individuals can help us predict how society will fare if inequality continues. Here are four TED Talk videos about experiments which explore the psychological nature of Inequity.

1. Paul Piff -  Shows what a rigged Monopoly game reveals about the super-rich.
2. Dan Pink - Uses the famous candle problem to evaluate Pay for Performance.
3. Frans de Waal - Show that even animals have a sense of fairness.
4. Michael Norton - Answers the question, Does Money Buy Happiness?

To help you decide which videos to watch before the meeting, here's the plan. We will show the first video in its entirety, but only excerpts from the second and third. The fourth video was already shown, so it will not be played again, but will still be part of the discussion.