further psychological fact suggests that certain things in contemporary politics are related more to status than to resources. One of the clear findings from experimental behavioral economics is that people are much more sensitive to losses than to gains. That is, they are likely to spend much more effort to avoid the loss of $100 than to receive an extra $100 in income.4 This may explain a historical phenomenon noted by Samuel Huntington, namely that the most politically destabilizing group tends not to be the desperate poor, but rather middle classes who feel they are losing their status
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