In a Financial Planning Association article , co-founder of the Financial Psychology Institute Bradley T. Klontz writes about three reasons why so many hate rich people.

1. It is easier to hate the rich than it is to become one.

Klontz calls this first reason “money ambivalence” and describes it as:

It is easier to change one’s beliefs than to change one’s financial status, so to alleviate our psychological discomfort we champion negative beliefs about the wealthy. If wealthy people are of a less desirable character, it is easier to feel good about not being one of them. We then go on a confirmatory biased search for information supporting our belief and ignore or discount information to the contrary. Ultimately, taking a position that disparages those who have more than us can allow us to feel better about ourselves.

Most people want to be rich on some level. Rich people are better able to handle financial shocks. They are able to stay out of debt. They are able to retire.

However, it takes sacrifices for most of us to become and stay rich. After all, wealth is what you save, not what you spend. To be rich tomorrow, you often have to live poorer today. In areas of life that are unimportant to their goals, the rich are often frugal to the point of being miserly in their spending. Most people don’t want to live like that.

This creates psychological discomfort most easily alleviated by hating the rich.

2. The rich have access to something we don’t.

Klontz calls this second reason “envy” and describes it as:

When we feel envious, we resent that the target of our envy has access to something we don’t. Our envy intensifies the more closely that desired attribute is connected to our self-worth. At our core, when we feel envy, we feel inferior.

…Interestingly, our negative feelings tend to grow in intensity when those individuals share one or more of our own attributes.

This explains why people love billionaire celebrities (who they have little in common with) but hate their local millionaire (who they have quite a lot in common with).

Interestingly, Klontz reports:

With regard to the stereotypes of the one percent, our findings will not surprise fans of the classic book The Millionaire Next Door. There was no significant difference between the mass affluent and the ultra-wealthy in our study with regard to many of these stereotypical assumptions about the rich. For example, most went to public school, were first-generation earners, were not more reclusive, and were not more likely to be against paying their fair share of taxes.

3. Wealth is subjective.

Klontz calls this second reason “relative deprivation” and describes it as:

It turns out that we do not evaluate our life satisfaction based on objective reality. In fact, our life satisfaction is a subjective evaluation based on how we compare ourselves to those around us. This has always been the case. However, a few decades ago, many of us had little exposure to what people had or didn’t have outside the microcosms of our family, friends, and neighbors.

Klontz argues that most people judge their own happiness, wealth, and success in relation to those around them. So if we see others who have more, it can make us angry at them because we feel less happy and successful after the comparison.

Overcoming this is essential to your financial health.

Becoming financially independent requires hard work. It is a challenge we all must face. There is no scorecard, no grade, and no winner. This is a pass-fail challenge that we each do on our own and succeed in our own way. This is how a trailer park can be the greatest image of financial freedom. This is why one of the wealthiest woman in Singapore may be using super saver coupons at the grocery store.

There always exists someone living their dream with only half of what you have. There is someone who has twice what you have and is struggling to make it.

What is the money for? That’s all that matters — not how much you earn, have in the bank, have in your house, are spending, pay in taxes, or save with coupons.

How much wealth you have does not define you, nor does it define others. Instead, judge your life by what you do with it.

Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash. Image has been cropped.