There may be an element of roleplay in all our public identities or personas. But some elements of these mindsets might be more baked in than others, if they're adaptations to the environment, as it were. It must be hard not to act like an amoral master when you find yourself dominating herds of relatively powerless peasants. There's a niche that humans and their pets fall into, and it might be the same for the rich and the poor.