"People from a lower-class background – in terms of occupation, status, education and income level – performed better in terms of emotional intelligence, the ability to read the emotions that others are feeling,” says, Michael Kraus, the study's co-author.

In Kraus' experiments, performed at the University of California, San Francisco, about 300 "upper" and "lower" class people were asked to discern the emotions of people in photographs, as well as those of applicants participating in mock job interviews.

In both experiments the wealthier test-takers "show a deficit in empathic accuracy."

"I wouldn’t say that upper-class people are being jerky," Krais said. "But they’re less aware of other people’s emotions. If a person is upset, they don’t see it. Similarly, if a person is happy and excited, they may not react to that either.”

But here's the real knee-slapper: those same wealthy test takers improved at reading emotions after comparing themselves higher on the socioeconomic spectrum.

So what's the moral of the story? Increase taxes on the rich!

Just think about it: you'll be making them more empathic people, and the U.S. will benefit from the much-needed revenue.