This is Your Brain on Income Inequality

Human beings don’t like income inequality, but until now scientists haven’t really known how deep that dislike goes. It turns out the aversion is brain-deep: A team of researchers, using functional MRI technology, has found that the “the reward centers in the human brain respond more strongly when a poor person receives a financial reward than when a rich person does.” Furthermore, even rich people’s brains seem to crave equality. “In the experiment, people who started out rich had a stronger reaction to other people getting money than to themselves getting money,” said Colin Camerer, one of the study‘s coauthors. “In other words, their brains liked it when others got money more than they liked it when they themselves got money.” [%comments]