The Broken Ladder and The Scoreboard

Don’t Slip on the Ladder While Watching the Scoreboard

Americans can’t resist the scoreboard. Sports networks not only constantly display the score of the game we’re watching, but they also scroll bottom tickers to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence on everyone else’s triumphs and miseries. It’s a crowd-pleasing, built-in lottery multiplier. Even if our team is struggling, solace may come if our rival is also behind the eight-ball. This both bothers and intrigues me.

I recently read a disturbing explanation in The Broken Ladder by social psychologist Keith Payne. I felt an immediate kinship with the man. He teaches at the University of North Carolina, a school that once briefly enrolled me and still holds my athletic allegiance, though it only acknowledges me in fundraising letters.

Like me, Payne grew up in the South in modest circumstances and labored in tobacco farming for minimum wage. He parlayed a graduate education into a successful career path but can’t merely put up his feet and forget his origins. He is a winner in the capitalist economy, yet remains keenly aware of those still stuck on lower rungs of the achievement ladder.

Globally, inequality is undeniable. A tiny fraction of the world’s population now holds as much wealth as billions of others combined. The United States ranks among the most economically imbalanced developed nations. But Payne argues that the real damage comes not from abstract charts but from the constant, in-your-face reminders of who is winning and who is still shopping the clearance rack of life. 

Payne contends that the perception of status and economic inequality—rather than a comparison of bank statements—rattles us to the core. Nothing destabilizes the human psyche quite like the suspicion that your neighbor just upgraded his home theater with a new sound system.

Payne shows how perceptual inequality intrudes on daily life. Consider boarding an airplane. Economy passengers forced to slog through the first-class cabin, passing seated patrons already sipping cocktails with oodles of legroom, exhibit far more aggressive behavior than those who board in the middle of the airplane or on flights where seats 3A and 33A are not that different.

In controlled laboratory studies, people subtly nudged to feel inadequate or unequal become more impulsive, more rigid in their thinking, politically polarized, and less charitable toward others—not exactly your ideal neighbors. Learning that one makes less money than similar peers sabotages morale and motivation and tempts workplace stealing. Interestingly, knowing that one makes more than similar peers offers no measurable bump in esteem or production. In this game, you either lose or break even.

We Americans cling fiercely to the belief that the world is fair and people generally get what they deserve. When misfortune strikes someone, we tend to attribute blame (e.g., she was in the wrong part of town) or differentiation from ourselves (e.g., I always take better precautions) to assure ourselves that we could never be victimized similarly. When this stretches credulity, we become gifted storytellers. The human mind is a tireless personal defense attorney while prosecuting everyone else.

Payne sees this need often satisfied with religious explanations. Interestingly, a country’s inequality index correlates positively with the population’s religiosity. Outcomes that defy rational explanations are attributed to God’s will or some divine prerogative beyond our understanding. Fairness dictates that Ten Commandments violations never go unpunished—even if comeuppance must wait until the next world.

Payne also examines how inequality fuels zero-sum thinking—the belief that if someone else gains, we must necessarily lose. This quiet assumption turns neighbors into competitors and every success story into a suspected theft. It is an exhausting way to live, but it comes very naturally to human beings. Our species is spectacular at keeping score, even when no one agreed on the rules of the game. 

Executive pay provides daily confirmation that something somewhere has drifted out of alignment. Surveys show that most workers believe CEOs are overpaid. They typically guess that corporate leaders earn maybe ten times what the average employee makes. In fact, Fortune 500 executives earn over three hundred times more. This compensation implies that these business titans are real game changers, yet research suggests that their corner-office efforts account for only a small fraction of overall company performance.

Is it any wonder that the average Joe believes the system is rigged against him? Is it any wonder that he makes shortsighted spending and voting decisions based upon this inferior self-perception?

So, what are we to do? We can’t eliminate inequalities, but we don’t have to dwell on them. Most of the world’s population would luxuriate with an income at our poverty level. But let’s face it, no one looks down the ladder, only upward. The healthiest answer is to live our lives fully without peeking at the scoreboard. Why invite misery if we fall behind when there’s no real boost when we get ahead? 

If that prescription seems too simple, feel free to buy a more expensive car, curse as you trudge through the first-class cabin, or concoct explanations to make the world more fair. While you’re doing it, just don’t slip on the broken ladder while you’re looking at the scoreboard.