Poverty and Decision-Making: Big Cognitive Loads

[lpetrich]

How Poverty Taxes the Brain - Emily Badger - The Atlantic Cities
We have a finite amount of mental processing capability. So if we get preoccupied with one task, we may end up neglecting others. Talking on a cellphone while driving can make one's driving significantly worse, just like CH3CH2OH.

Researchers publishing some groundbreaking findings today in the journal Science have concluded that poverty imposes such a massive cognitive load on the poor that they have little bandwidth left over to do many of the things that might lift them out of poverty – like go to night school, or search for a new job, or even remember to pay bills on time.

In a series of experiments run by researchers at Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Warwick, low-income people who were primed to think about financial problems performed poorly on a series of cognition tests, saddled with a mental load that was the equivalent of losing an entire night’s sleep. Put another way, the condition of poverty imposed a mental burden akin to losing 13 IQ points, or comparable to the cognitive difference that’s been observed between chronic alcoholics and normal adults.

In Science magazine: Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function

The experiments:

The first of them was on 400 randomly-selected people in a New Jersey mall, people with annual incomes varying from $20,000 to $70,000. They were asked about a scenario where their car required either $150 or $1500 in repairs. Would they pay in full? Get a loan? Or put it off?

The subjects were then given various IQ sorts of tests. For the $150 repair, the poorer and richer ones did equally well, while for the $1500 repair, the poorer ones performed much worse than the richer ones.

The second experiment was on some sugarcane farmers in India who experience an annual cycle of wealth and poverty. They receive 60% of their annual income at harvest time, making them relatively rich for a brief time. For the rest of the time, they have cognitive impairment similar to the poorer New Jersey mallgoers.


Another source of cognitive loading is decision-making in general, as other studies show. Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? - NYTimes.com A shorter version: Willpower depletion and the brownie decision – The Pump Handle

The whole article is well worth a read, but in a nutshell, researchers have found that subjects' willpower can be depleted by resisting temptation and be restored by glucose -- but not by artificial sweetners that provide less energy. When subjects' willpower is compromised, the quality of their decisions suffers. ...

Last December, Princeton economist Dean Spears published a series of experiments that each revealed how "poverty appears to have made economic decision-making more consuming of cognitive control for poorer people than for richer people." In one experiment, poor participants in India performed far less well on a self-control task after simply having to first decide whether to purchase body soap. As Spears found, "Choosing first was depleting only for the poorer participants." Again, if you have enough money, deciding whether to buy the soap only requires considering whether you want it, not what you might have to give up to get it. Many of the tradeoff decisions that the poor have to make every day are onerous and depressing: whether to pay rent or buy food; to buy medicine or winter clothes; to pay for school materials or loan money to a relative. These choices are weighty, and just thinking about them seems to exact a mental cost.

 

[Trausti]

The condition of poverty imposed a mental burden akin to losing 13 IQ points

Methinks they've got the causal relationship backwards.

 

[Bronzeage]

There are two constants in the life of a poor person. The first is immediate needs, and the second is, uncertainty about future needs.

When these two are combined in the decision making process, a lot of decisions can seem foolish to an outside observer.

If you are short on cash and the rent, your car note, and your car insurance, are all due, which do you pay?

 

[fromderinside]

my drug guy.

 

[Bronzeage]

my drug guy.

If you have a debt with your drug guy, you don't have rent, a car note, or insurance.

 

[fromderinside]

Exacty. No need to look down the road for decisions then.

 

[fast]

There are two constants in the life of a poor person. The first is immediate needs, and the second is, uncertainty about future needs.

When these two are combined in the decision making process, a lot of decisions can seem foolish to an outside observer.

If you are short on cash and the rent, your car note, and your car insurance, are all due, which do you pay?

Insurance.

 

[Bronzeage]

There are two constants in the life of a poor person. The first is immediate needs, and the second is, uncertainty about future needs.

When these two are combined in the decision making process, a lot of decisions can seem foolish to an outside observer.

If you are short on cash and the rent, your car note, and your car insurance, are all due, which do you pay?

Insurance.

Interesting choice. Why?

 

[another1]

Methinks they've got the causal relationship backwards.

35% of the poor people in America are stupid. Isn't that a reasonable percentage for America? That is a very kind percentage. Unkind and more realistic would be 50% but I'm trying to stay factual. Screwed up 3rd worlders don't count because they're bound to be poor, but Americans have the right to be wealthy. Poor Americans can become rich if they're persistent and good at setting goals, but it is just too easy to take handouts. The opportunities they have are ridiculous. So many. Being poor in America means you're either stupid, lazy or the victim of a witches curse.

I don't know really, and I'm just speaking on what I directly see, but most poor people I know do everything they can to dress rich. They selfie themselves like they're rich superstars all the time. They could easily put that energy into night school, and have money left over for their kids - if only they stopped the social cracksmoking and buying high fashion clothes that make them look like idiots anyways. Hence the stupidity, which usually has nothing to do with I.Q huh.

Sex probably does the same thing to the brain. They've tested people in malls for that one too I bet.

 

[fromderinside]

Being poor in America means you're either stupid, lazy or the victim of a witches curse.

I don't know really, and I'm just speaking on what I directly see, but most poor people I know do everything they can to dress rich. They selfie themselves like they're rich superstars all the time. They could easily put that energy into night school, and have money left over for their kids - if only they stopped the social cracksmoking and buying high fashion clothes that make them look like idiots anyways. Hence the stupidity, which usually has nothing to do with I.Q huh.

Sex probably does the same thing to the brain. They've tested people in malls for that one too I bet.

I sense the odor of capitalistic thinking in your post. People who run Ponzi schemes are often not smart at all. They just take something and run with it making money right up until they're brought to justice. Poor and lazy are related by the idea that money comes to those who work hard a debunked puritan theme. Grasshoppers do just fine hopping about all summer long. It was proved that there is no such thing as a witches curse, just fearful people ready to blame whatever. Believing whatever seems to work well for most because there is little evidence that anybody thinks much including the likes of the Koch brothers.

The above blows the shit out of it for those who think money and smart are related. So with what are we left.

Poor people tend to remain in one place and poor over generations.
Poor people tend to be out of favor types, indians, african americans, hispanics, poor white people.
Laws are written by rich white people to protect themselves against catching poorness.

Not very gene related. Not very nurture related. Mostly bigotry.

Conclusion: poor people are kept poor to serve rich white people.

 

[fast]

Insurance.

Interesting choice. Why?

Not paying insurance has legal repercussions (e.g. Drivers License in jeopardy); however, the reason this took precedence over rent was because of word choice; hence the distinction between "due" and "past due." It takes much longer to evict than for the insurance company to notify the highway department of non-compliance. It's the same logic as choosing between lights and mortgage--expediacy of negative consequences. If rent was three months past due, the seriousness may trump the insurance cancellation. Car note, well, never in the running--all things being equal, that is.

 

[fast]

The above blows the shit out of it for those who think money and smart are related. So with what are we left.

Bullshit. Not only are they related, it's an incestous marriage. Well, if you mangle everything up, switch meanings, and hold your nose. Oh, gotta say it a few times too, I think.

I'm acutely aware of argumentum ad Crumenam and both, his close and distant, relatives, so carefully, and be rest assured, the music plays as I tango and wiggle through the implications of my belief that oh so very often, there is a connection, at least a connection of sorts grasping and clasping at the clutches of the grip binding the barely inseparable bondage that messily glues the steel tether between being smart and making money.

 

[lpetrich]

I think that grasshoppers have gotten a bum rap from Aesop -- they only look lazy. They can eat half their body weight in a day, at least according to What do grasshoppers eat? | Reference.com. A big swarm of grasshopers can devastate farmers' fields -- consider plagues of locusts.

As to going to night school, what would that accomplish? Seriously. Will one get the equivalent of a Harvard PhD after two years of it? Furthermore, it is an economic drain rather than a source of income, and we need to be continually kept alive. It's hard to do long-term planning on a small income. If I wanted to condemn someone for poor planning, it would be someone with an upper-middle-class income or more who squanders it. Someone like Karyn Bosnak. At least she has an engaging personality.

 

[untermensche]

Poverty is only a problem if animals are products of their environments.