First, most of the money is going to those who are already affluent. Over the past three decades, almost half of our growth in income has gone to the top 10 per cent of the wealthiest people. As reported by Fairfax Media, in a lecture at Melbourne University this week, the former director for employment, labour and social affairs at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation, John Martin, cited new OECD data showing almost a quarter of all growth in our household income from 1980 to 2008 went to the top 1 per cent. Economist and Labor MP Andrew Leigh believes this number is inflated - in his book Battlers and Billionaires, he claims 13 per cent of growth in Australia from 1980 to 2010 went to the top 1 per cent. Still, it's a skew we don't challenge enough. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, the test of progress is provision for the poor, not whether ''we add more to the abundance of those who have much''. Second, there is a growing body of research on wealth that is overwhelmingly consistent and shows the rich tend to be more selfish, less empathetic, less generous and less compassionate. Yes, this is a massive generalisation.

But the question is - if it has been proven that rich people lack empathy as individuals, what happens to a nation when it grows fatter, sleeker and wealthier? Are we likely to share more, or less? First, the research. I know, bagging out rich people is not just a national pastime, but also a historically appealing cliche. Ebenezer Scrooge, Montgomery Burns, Gordon Gekko. It also provides a neat way of pretending we are not ourselves privileged - most people reading this would hover somewhere near the top 10 per cent, as I would myself. But psychologists have been exploring the effect wealth has on social behaviour, and the evidence has been steadily mounting that the powerful are, in some important ways, less armed with virtue than they are with money. Studies have found the wealthy are less interested in the needs and motions of others and are not as helpful, compassionate or generous as those who possess less. One study, published in 2010, found people with less money are better at reading faces in a measure called empathy accuracy. Two psychologists from Berkeley, Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner, have been researching how wealth influences social behaviour for years. In one study, they watched drivers at a congested intersection. They found drivers in luxury cars were more likely to cut off other drivers, and speed past pedestrians. In another study, they asked people to think about where they stood compared to other people, financially. The participants were then given a jar of lollies and told to help themselves to whatever they wanted - and that what was left would be given to children in a lab nearby.

Those who considered themselves affluent took significantly more. In a further study, wealthier people were shown to be less likely to agree with statements such as ''I often notice people who need help'' and ''It's important to take care of people who are vulnerable''. Again, when shown videos of cancer patients, the hearts of the less well-off people were more likely to slow down - a classically empathetic response. (This research is a nice corrective to those who blame the poor for being poor, although it does not factor in other detrimental psychological effects poverty can have.) The most likely reasons for this empathy gap stem from the independence of the rich, the lack of reliance on other people, and the insulation from the vagaries of life - anyone's life. In short, we are much less likely to pay attention to people we don't need.

As The New York Times put it in a succinct headline this week: ''Rich People Care Less.'' Daniel Goleman, the author of the book Emotional Intelligence, cited research showing rich people were more likely to interrupt and express disregard in conversations, and less likely to show concern for people going through hardship. The implications are potentially profound. ''Reducing the economic gap,'' Goleman argued, ''may be impossible without also addressing the gap in empathy.'' Could this be true of policymakers? A 2010 BRW analysis found the average wealth of a Liberal MP was $4.9 million - three times that of Labor MPs at $1.7 million. These results were distorted by the presence of Malcolm Turnbull (wealth estimated at $186 million) and Kevin Rudd ($56 million, largely thanks to his wife, Therese Rein). When these two men were removed, the average worth of Liberal MPs dropped to $1.6 million and Labor MPs to about $1 million, which is still - at least - more than double the national average. I am not suggesting money destroys a capacity for compassion. A quick glance at our greatest philanthropists shows that to be untrue. Nor am I suggesting that a property boom could have the power to turn decent people into Scrooges overnight.

I am just wondering whether this research might suggest growth in wealth could blunt our ability to imagine what it might be like to be without. To be unable to buy into the property market. To be a single parent stripped of benefits. To be homeless. To be fleeing persecution, and travelling across oceans in dodgy boats with infants because you are desperate for another life. As a nation, we have so much. It's easy to forget how much. You can only hope that in a time of extraordinary prosperity, that we do not forget what it is like to have little, or nothing at all. Twitter: @bairdjulia