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I have never thought about honesty or kindness in terms of class. I spent my professional life in Human Resources working with housekeeping staff to top executives. As a Landlord, I have leased properties to minimum wage earners and medical doctors. Never, once, have I ever considered status or income as criteria for quality of person. And, now at age 69, never have any of my experiences lead me to form generalizations. Have had positive and negative experiences with all kinds of people. If I were to make one negative, blanket statement I’d say the overall most dishonest people I have dealt with have been lawyers. But I have met some good to the core folks who were lawyers, too.
I've met good and bad of every economic class. I'm also from Appalachia.
With that said, a lot of the working class and poor here are neck deep in "honor culture." An insult, real or perceived, is grounds for a fight. People will fight and cause drama over next to nothing. People of a higher class would generally let these insults roll off them. A poor guy in the honor culture will fight.
We have two acquaintances we are friendly with who are quite wealthy. They are two of the nicest most generous people we know. Otoh, i have 3 friends who are in the lower socio-economic class and they are very nice. We also have neighbors who are upper middle class professionals and they are nasty. It depends on the person, not the economic class.
Both my wife and I come from poor families. I lived in Government Assisted projects. I did well for myself at the age of 21 and within 9 years we were considered as upper class due to our income. We spent about 10 years living large but in the end we did not like the people we were associating with. They were liars and crooks paying off politicians for favors.
I had cell phones from the very first ones made or cars and then the large ones you could carry. Expensive cars, gold Rolex and custom made suits and shirts. I belonged to two private clubs an we lived large. While it was fun for a few years buying and doing the thing we never dreamed about, in the end we did not like the type of people we were associating with. Long story short, we moved, dumped all the bling and found new friends. There were a few like us. Business owners who lived a middle class life and had a wife like mine, and not a trophy wife. We also had a Fedex Driver and Electrician as my best friends.
The problem we had in the past when we earned a lot of money was that there was a huge gulf between us and our old friends. No one wants to visit someone whose house is much more expensive than yours or who drives a car you could never afford. We did not want to eat at the places they could afford and they could not afford the places we liked to eat at. Over time we had less and less in common and we drifted away.
We learned to have two sets of friends. The Middle Class ones who we felt most comfortable with. Those who would help you anytime you asked. We also had a few friends who had money but did not live large. However they could afford a night out that costs a few hundred for drinks and food. So we mixed it up. Now that we are retired, all of our friends are middle class. Two worked for GM on the line and then middle management. One couple whose husband was a bank VP. That it is. All of our houses and cars are in the same price range and none of us buy things to impress others. We just have fun socializing. Tonight we are all going to dinner to celebrate a few birthdays and my retirement, at The Olive Garden where we have coupons. It is an adjustment for us but we love our new friends and there is never any pressure to keep up with them or wear the trappings of success. I live in shorts, a tee shirt and sandals. I own one pair of shoes and no suits, ties or dress shirts. We all help each other and are concerned about each other. We are back where we were a long time ago with middle class, maybe upper middle class a little, and very happy with no pressure to keep up with our old social circle who judged you by your money and what you wore, lived in or drove.
Both my wife and I come from poor families. I lived in Government Assisted projects. I did well for myself at the age of 21 and within 9 years we were considered as upper class due to our income. We spent about 10 years living large but in the end we did not like the people we were associating with. They were liars and crooks paying off politicians for favors.
I had cell phones from the very first ones made or cars and then the large ones you could carry. Expensive cars, gold Rolex and custom made suits and shirts. I belonged to two private clubs an we lived large. While it was fun for a few years buying and doing the thing we never dreamed about, in the end we did not like the type of people we were associating with. Long story short, we moved, dumped all the bling and found new friends. There were a few like us. Business owners who lived a middle class life and had a wife like mine, and not a trophy wife. We also had a Fedex Driver and Electrician as my best friends.
The problem we had in the past when we earned a lot of money was that there was a huge gulf between us and our old friends. No one wants to visit someone whose house is much more expensive than yours or who drives a car you could never afford. We did not want to eat at the places they could afford and they could not afford the places we liked to eat at. Over time we had less and less in common and we drifted away.
We learned to have two sets of friends. The Middle Class ones who we felt most comfortable with. Those who would help you anytime you asked. We also had a few friends who had money but did not live large. However they could afford a night out that costs a few hundred for drinks and food. So we mixed it up. Now that we are retired, all of our friends are middle class. Two worked for GM on the line and then middle management. One couple whose husband was a bank VP. That it is. All of our houses and cars are in the same price range and none of us buy things to impress others. We just have fun socializing. Tonight we are all going to dinner to celebrate a few birthdays and my retirement, at The Olive Garden where we have coupons. It is an adjustment for us but we love our new friends and there is never any pressure to keep up with them or wear the trappings of success. I live in shorts, a tee shirt and sandals. I own one pair of shoes and no suits, ties or dress shirts. We all help each other and are concerned about each other. We are back where we were a long time ago with middle class, maybe upper middle class a little, and very happy with no pressure to keep up with our old social circle who judged you by your money and what you wore, lived in or drove.
That's an interesting observation / story. I've always attended my dad's parties and known his friends, and most of them are also wealthy / successful, but one of his best friends is an SFPD officer, it's probably just that in my dad's position he mainly meets other people who have a lot of money. It's kind of the nature of being in a certain social circle. My GF knows people from her work, which she just does for a few extra bucks, but they're mostly losers (other servers / restaurant staff, few of them with any ambition whatsoever and mostly drug users). People associate with the people they most come into contact with, I think.
I haven't liked all of my dad's friends, a few of them are the stereotypical rich people and I find them just intolerable, so I try to avoid them as much as possible. Others are some of the nicest people I know, though, so willing to give advice, help, and just talk about anything. I think it's also because they're older, though, so they've been in this position for a long time, they don't have anything to "prove," they've been rich forever haha.
I was thinking about the same situation you mentioned, though, because I'll be moving to a new city and wanting to make new friends, but all of my current friends have known me for a long time, they know my family, etc. My best friend is also a police officer, not a rich guy, but extremely frugal and therefore lives the life he wants and makes good money as a single guy with his own house. Making new friends, I do think I'll make a bit more of an effort to make friends with the neighbors, but I'm sure I'll end up meeting a lot of people who aren't as well off. I personally hope that isn't an issue, because it isn't for me, but you're right there is always that concern that if you want to go out and the place is more expensive, they may not be able to do that with you, or it would be a hardship you're basically putting them in because that's a lot of money to them.
I think the key in my experience with life is meeting happy people. If a person is unhappy, they will be living in a 5,000 square foot house intensely jealous of a person with a 7,500 square foot house. They'll never be happy. They are always jealous of other people for whatever they have, because it's just in their nature. For whatever reason -- career, relationships, personality -- they just aren't happy and will find a way to take it out on other people. I find that happy people are content with their own lives, they're usually moving forward themselves, and aren't bothered by other people with more, because they love their own lives. My best friend LOVES being a police officer, this was his dream. He went back to college to get an accounting degree (his second major, business being his first) because he spent about 3.5 years applying to local departments, but hadn't gotten accepted. I was hanging out with him as luck would have it the day he got the call that he was hired and it was great watching his dream come true. So he wouldn't be jealous of someone else because this is what he most wants to be doing. Those are the types of people you need to find and associate with, I think.
If someone hates their job, they struggle paycheck to paycheck, and are unhappy, then they walk into your luxurious house in a gated community, realizing you have it all, they're probably not going to be very happy about that, either. I think it's not just socioeconomic class but general life satisfaction. I want to be friends with other happy, mentally healthy people, from any class
Short excerpt: One way to resolve these apparently discrepant findings is to argue, as Kraus and Callaghan (2016) did, that the relation between social class and prosocial behaviour is moderated by a number of factors, including whether the context is a public or private one. To test this idea, Kraus and Callaghan (2016) conducted a series of studies in which they manipulated whether donations made to an anonymous other in a dictator game were made in a private or public context. In the private context, the donor remained anonymous. In the public context, the donor's name and city of residence were announced, along with the donation. Lower‐class participants were more generous in private than in public, whereas the reverse was true for higher‐class participants. Interestingly, higher‐class participants were more likely to expect to feel proud about acting prosocially, and this difference in anticipated pride mediated the effect of social class on the difference between public and private donations.
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