The views of the rich on other policies that might reduce inequality followed a similar pattern. A mere 19 percent of the wealthy, versus two-thirds of the general public, said the government should “see to it” that anyone who wants a job can find one. Forty percent of the wealthy, versus 78 percent of the public, said the government should make the minimum wage “high enough so that no family with a full-time worker falls below the official poverty line.”

Image When “government takes over the economy,” Senator Ted Cruz said, “it freezes everything in place. And it exacerbates income inequality.” Credit... Jabin Botsford/The New York Times

More recently, one of Professor Page’s protégés, a Northwestern graduate student named Fiona Chin, has further investigated the subject, conducting interviews with nearly 100 other wealthy Americans across the country. Unlike Professors Page, Seawright and Bartels, whose interviewers typically spent under an hour soliciting their subjects’ views on a range of policy questions, Ms. Chin limited her discussions to inequality and often spoke with her subjects for several hours at a time.

Ms. Chin’s findings, which she is scheduled to present at a conference in April, are even more stark. As she puts it, the rich tend to see inequality “as a story about individual hard work, effort and character.”

They recognize that growing up poor puts workers at a disadvantage but argue that a middle-class background presents no barrier to economic success and that growing up wealthy can even be a liability because it robs people of their incentive to work hard. In general, Ms. Chin has found, the rich regard those who do not succeed in life as “people who didn’t take advantage of the education system,” not victims of circumstances beyond their control.

Some of Ms. Chin’s subjects noted that their views had changed only after they amassed their riches. “Before I had much money, I thought there should be 100 percent estate tax on dynastic wealth,” a 33-year-old Silicon Valley engineer told Ms. Chin, who grants her subjects anonymity. “Once you’re playing the game, it’s game on.”

Comments like this hint at one of the most intriguing conclusions of the recent avenue of research: Wealth seems to shape people’s views regardless of their age, gender, education, marital status — or even ideology and political party. “There is a sense in which wealth seems to trump partisanship,” Professor Page said in an email.