Abstract
In 2009, in the midst of the Great Recession, The New York Times' Wealth Matters columnist Paul Sullivan wrote a column describing how the wealthiest people in America were not immune to the financial anxiety impacting everyone else. Readers flooded his inbox. Their responses were surprisingly vitriolic. Not only did readers lack empathy for the affluent, they were outraged at Sullivan for caring. I was interviewed by Sullivan for his follow-up piece, "All This Anger Against the Rich May Be Unhealthy," in which he doubled down and examined whether or not the collective blame being placed on the rich was deserved. He also explored the potential personal downside to this anger. For my part, I talked with Sullivan about our research on money avoidance scripts, such as "money is bad, rich people are shallow and greedy, and people become rich by taking advantage of others," and how these beliefs predict poor financial outcomes and self-destructive financial behaviors.