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posted by martyb on Tuesday November 06 2018, @03:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the poverty-sucks dept.

The poor often behave in less capable ways, which can further perpetuate poverty. We hypothesize that poverty directly impedes cognitive function and present two studies that test this hypothesis. First, we experimentally induced thoughts about finances and found that this reduces cognitive performance among poor but not in well-off participants. Second, we examined the cognitive function of farmers over the planting cycle. We found that the same farmer shows diminished cognitive performance before harvest, when poor, as compared with after harvest, when rich. This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or work effort. Nor can it be explained with stress: Although farmers do show more stress before harvest, that does not account for diminished cognitive performance. Instead, it appears that poverty itself reduces cognitive capacity. We suggest that this is because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for other tasks. These data provide a previously unexamined perspective and help explain a spectrum of behaviors among the poor. We discuss some implications for poverty policy.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976


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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday November 06 2018, @12:51PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday November 06 2018, @12:51PM (#758474)

    The real problem with #1 for poor people is the electricity bill, I'm not sure I run a net profit off my basement freezer even with aggressive Costco shopping.

    WRT #2 (Oh the pun) even as a starving student in a small apartment I had no trouble buying and storing a years supply of toilet paper in the bachelor years. Being a guy, a roll lasts awhile, I donno what girls do with that stuff (eat it for fiber?) but they seem capable of using more than one roll per day per girl.

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