How Wealth Makes Us Blind: The Monopoly Experiment That Reveals the Secrets of Privilege

Picture an ordinary lab room — nothing flashy, just a couple of chairs, a game board, and two strangers who’ve just met. One of them gets double the starting cash, two dice to roll, and full freedom on the board. The other? Half the money, one die, and limited moves. They play classic Monopoly, but from the very first turn, the rules are rigged. After 15–20 minutes, the game ends: the one with the advantage wins. Then comes the real kicker — the post-game chat. The winner, sipping water from a fancy glass (which, by the way, only they get), explains their victory not as luck or rigged rules, but as “smart strategy” and “masterful gameplay.” “I just knew how to play,” they say, as if they’d forgotten about that initial $2,000 head start.

This isn’t a made-up story from a corporate training session or a satirical comedy. It’s a real experiment conducted by psychologist Paul Piff from the University of California, Berkeley. The study, which went viral after Piff’s 2013 TED Talk, shows how privilege — whether inherited at birth or artificially imposed — distorts our perception of reality. It forces us to ask: why do people born into advantage so often attribute their success solely to themselves? And how does this shape a society where inequality feels normal?

The Experiment in Detail: Monopoly as a Mirror to the Soul

Paul Piff, a social psychologist whose work focuses on the intersection of wealth, morality, and behavior, launched this experiment in the 2010s as part of a broader study on how status affects ethics. Participants — students or everyday people — were brought into the lab in pairs. They were told the roles were assigned randomly, but in reality, Piff and his team deliberately “boosted” one player:

• The “rich” player starts with $2,000 (instead of the standard $1,500).
• They roll two dice, moving twice as fast.
• On top of that, their game piece is big and noticeable, unlike the modest token of their opponent.

During the game, researchers recorded everything: laughter, gestures, comments. The “rich” players quickly relaxed — laughing louder, taking up more space at the table, sometimes even bending the rules because, well, why not? As the game wound down, the winner got “VIP treatment”: water in an elegant glass, napkins on the table. Then came the interview.

The results were shocking in their predictability. Around 80% of the “rich” participants credited their win to their own skills. “I invested wisely in real estate,” they’d say, forgetting that their starting cash let them buy properties without risk. The poorer players, by contrast, were more likely to mention luck or inequality: “He had way more chances from the start.” Piff captured this on video — and those clips became a sensation because they mirror what we see every day: from social media where billionaires brag about “hard work” to political debates about “self-made success.”

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2012 under the title “Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior.” It involved over 1,000 participants and included not just the game but tests of empathy and honesty. Piff and his colleagues found that “rich” players were less attuned to others’ suffering — in the game, this showed up as indifference to their opponent’s bankruptcy.

The Psychological Explanation: Why We Ignore Privilege

Here’s where psychology comes in — and it’s simple but painful. The main culprit is the fundamental attribution error, a concept introduced by psychologists Lee Ross and Fritz Heider in 1977. It’s a cognitive bias where we explain others’ behavior by their internal character (e.g., “he lost because he’s lazy”) while underestimating external, situational factors (like the game being rigged). In Piff’s experiment, this acts like a magnifying glass: privilege blinds us to systemic advantages.

Add in the self-serving bias — the tendency to attribute success to ourselves and failure to circumstances. A 2015 University of Kent study showed that higher-income people are 20% more likely to believe in “meritocracy” — the idea that the world is fair and rewards effort. But reality tells a different story: in the U.S., 60% of wealth is inherited, not earned, according to Pew Research Center (2023).

Another layer is the Dunning-Kruger effect, though Piff doesn’t mention it directly. The “rich” players in the game overestimate their abilities because success comes easily. This leads to ethical shifts: in follow-up experiments, Piff found that “rich” players were 2–3 times more likely to lie about rules or steal from the “community chest” (mimicking petty theft). Why? Because status erodes empathy. Brain imaging studies (fMRI research published in Nature Neuroscience in 2019) show that people with high status have lower activity in empathy-related brain regions (like the insula) — they literally “don’t feel” others’ pain.

Here’s a fun psychology tidbit: it’s not just about money. Similar effects show up in gender or racial privilege. A 2020 Harvard study found that men in mixed teams overestimate their contributions by 30% because they’re “conditioned” to dominate. Or consider the “bystander effect” — when no one in a crowd helps because everyone thinks, “Someone else will.” In Monopoly, the poorer player quietly endures because “that’s how the strong play.”

Paul Piff: The Psychologist Challenging Elites

Who is Paul Piff? A 40-something (at the time of his TED Talk) Berkeley professor, a UC Irvine grad who studies how social class shapes morality. His career is a rebellion against stereotypes. “The rich aren’t evil,” he said in his TED Talk, “but wealth changes the brain.” Piff grew up in a middle-class family in Seattle, but he was fascinated by success stories: why does the top 1% hold 40% of wealth (per Oxfam, 2024) yet volunteer less?

His work has been cited in The New York Times and The Atlantic. His 2013 TED Talk, “Does money make you mean?” has over 5 million views. Fun fact: Piff tested himself — playing Monopoly with friends and noticing how quickly he “forgot” the rigged rules.

Broader Implications: From Lab to the World

Piff’s experiment is a microcosm of society. In the U.S., where the top 1% controls 32% of wealth (Federal Reserve, 2024), politicians say, “Work harder.” But privilege compounds: better schools, networks, access to credit. The World Inequality Lab (2023) shows that in high-inequality countries (like Ukraine or Brazil), self-serving bias intensifies — people believe in “self-made heroes” while ignoring corruption or inheritance.

Psychology offers solutions. Bias awareness training helps: privilege-awareness programs (like those at Google or Harvard Business School) reduce egocentrism by 25%. Or try “role-playing” — play Monopoly with friends and switch roles. Piff advises: “Ask yourself: what would I say if I were on the other side?”

In a world where inequality is growing (Ukraine’s Gini coefficient is 0.26, but feels higher due to war, per State Statistics Service 2024), this understanding is key to empathy. It reminds us: success isn’t always merit, and privilege isn’t a sin if you see it. Next time someone brags about their “strategy,” think about the dice. Maybe someone rolled them for you.

Sources for Deeper Reading:

• Paul Piff’s TED Talk: “Does money make you mean?” (youtube.com/watch?v=1W347t4SP04).
• PNAS article: Piff et al. (2012). “Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior.”
• Data: Pew Research Center (2023), Oxfam Inequality Report (2024).

This story isn’t about judgment — it’s about clarity. Because understanding how our brains work is the first step toward a fairer world.