The upper crust of society is commonly characterised as being aloof. Indeed, the trait has come to stand as an archetype for the social class. Yet it has been an open question as to whether this reputation is deserved and, if it is, why joining the higher echelons leads people to behave this way. Now a new experiment is revealing that members of the upper classes actually pay a lot less attention to the faces of other people as they walk down a street than members of the lower classes do. You can listen to the full story on The Economist's science podcast Babbage here.