Washington, Dec 21 : People in the lower socio-economic classes are more physiologically attuned to suffering, and quicker to express compassion than their more affluent counterparts, a new study has revealed.

The finding confirms the emotional differences between the rich and poor, as depicted in such Charles Dickens classics as “A Christmas Carol” and “A Tale of Two Cities”.

By comparison, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that individuals in the upper middle and upper classes were less able to detect and respond to the distress signals of others.

Overall, the results indicate that socio-economic status correlates with the level of empathy and compassion that people show in the face of emotionally charged situations.

“It’s not that the upper classes are cold-hearted,” said UC Berkeley social psychologist Jennifer Stellar, lead author of the study.

“They may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering because they haven’t had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives,” she explained.

More than 300 ethnically diverse young adults were recruited for the UC Berkeley study, which was divided into three experiments that used three separate groups of participants.

Because all the volunteers were college undergraduates, their class identification – lower class, lower middle class, middle class, upper middle class or upper class – was based on parental income and education.

The study found that compassion was the only positive emotion reported at greater levels by lower-class participants.

Lower-class participants also showed greater decreases in heart rate as they watched the emotionally charged videos than upper-class participants.

“One might assume that watching someone suffering would cause stress and raise the heart rate. But we have found that, during compassion, the heart rate lowers as if the body is calming itself to take care of another person,” Stellar said.

The results suggest that it’s not that upper classes don’t care, it’s that they just aren’t as good at perceiving stress or anxiety,” Stellar added.

The finding was published online on Dec. 12 in the journal, Emotion. (ANI)