Poverty lowers brain power, making it harder to figure out ways to escape financial instability: stu - Polidicks

[IMG]http://wpmedia.life.nationalpost.com/2013/08/pennies.jpg?w=620[/IMG] [QUOTE]TORONTO — Dealing with poverty takes up so much mental energy that the poor have less brain power for making decisions and taking steps to overcome their financial difficulties, a study suggests. The research, published Thursday in the journal Science, concludes that a person’s cognitive abilities can be diminished by such nagging concerns as hanging on to a place to live and having enough money to feed their families. As a result, there is less “mental bandwidth” left over for education, training, time-management and other steps that could help break the cycle of poverty, the researchers contend. “Previous accounts of poverty have blamed the poor for their personal failings, or an environment that is not conducive to success,” said Jiaying Zhao of the University of British Columbia, who led the study, conducted while she was a graduate student at Princeton University. "If you are poor, you’re more error prone and errors cost you more dearly. It’s hard to find a way out." “We’re arguing that being poor can impair cognitive functioning, which hinders individuals’ ability to make good decisions and can cause further poverty,” she said. The study had two parts. In the first, about 400 people at a New Jersey mall were randomly selected to take part in a number of standard cognitive and logic tests. The participants’ annual family income ranged from $20,000 to $160,000, with a median of $70,000. Subjects took the computer-based tests after being presented with a hypothetical financial problem that they would later have to solve: how they would come up with the money to pay for having their car fixed when the cost was either $150 or $1,500. With the lower amount on their minds, those with low incomes fared as well on the tests as better-off participants. But when the amount was 10 times higher, low-income subjects performed far more poorly on the tests, said Zhao. On average, a person preoccupied with money problems showed a reduction in cognitive function equivalent to a 13-point drop in IQ or the loss of a night’s sleep.[/QUOTE] [url]http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/08/30/poverty-lowers-brain-power-making-it-harder-to-figure-out-ways-to-escape-financial-instability-study/[/url]

Well no shit, if you're worried about your next meal or how to pay for the next bill and you literally live paycheck by paycheck you're going to have the mentality. That is why when poor people normally get a large sum of money at once they spend it all because that is the only way they know how to save it because they normally don't get to hold on to that amount of money. Being poor sucks, being a poor person who can't really save up is worse....

y dyou got pot leafs in your pennies?

[QUOTE=MR-X;42026445]Well no shit, if you're worried about your next meal or how to pay for the next bill and you literally live paycheck by paycheck you're going to have the mentality. That is why when poor people normally get a large sum of money at once they spend it all because that is the only way they know how to save it because they normally don't get to hold on to that amount of money. Being poor sucks, being a poor person who can't really save up is worse....[/QUOTE] Yeah no shit... I bet that if you hadn't read that you'd take this for granted the rest of your life without ever realising that some people are so dumb they need to be told how stressful poverty can be.

[QUOTE=Samoht;42026955]y dyou got pot leafs in your pennies?[/QUOTE] We don't use pennies anymore.

[QUOTE=pentium;42027224]We don't use pennies anymore.[/QUOTE] And now all prices are up like 2 cents

[QUOTE=MR-X;42026445]Well no shit, if you're worried about your next meal or how to pay for the next bill and you literally live paycheck by paycheck you're going to have the mentality. That is why when poor people normally get a large sum of money at once they spend it all because that is the only way they know how to save it because they normally don't get to hold on to that amount of money. Being poor sucks, being a poor person who can't really save up is worse....[/QUOTE] You may laugh but I pick pennies off the streets, been doing this since childhood, hobby but still, I once saved 60£ after one year, normally it's around 30£ per year for bowing down and picking up a coin.

Duh, why do you think the education system is fucked?

[QUOTE=Grindigo;42029034]You may laugh but I pick pennies off the streets, been doing this since childhood, hobby but still, I once saved 60£ after one year, normally it's around 30£ per year for bowing down and picking up a coin.[/QUOTE] eh not bad got you're self a free game

This article seems further enforced by the studies that show that wealthy people are less prone to obesity and such due to eating healthier and having healthier lifestyles.

[QUOTE=Gundevil;42028974]And now all prices are up like 2 cents[/QUOTE] You round down basically as often as you round up 1 and 2 cents go down, 3 and 4 cents go up

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americans are seriously lacking in middle class pride i was raised with a very stoic and romanticised ideal of the working person, that there was a strength and dignity in living with less. of course its complete rubbish, but i think its better than this "penniless millionaire" grumpiness.

[QUOTE=thisispain;42030447]americans are seriously lacking in middle class pride[/QUOTE] well that's because there's no middle class anymore

It seems like you're either rich or poor in this kinda climate, when a "middle-class" should be more prominent. The gap between rich and poor really needs to be narrowed over the coming decades. Still, the stresses of poverty weakening brain power causes so many horrifying things to suddenly make a dreadful kind of sense, and it scares me that it is actually a real thing and not something out of a horror story.

I may not have understood the article. Sure stress sometimes disturbs your cognition. But how did they come up with the conclusion that money problems uses so significantly brain power that they cannot handle money problems as well as others? We're talking about a quite big IQ drop. To me the obvious conclusion would be that on average intelligent people are more likely to have success in life and vice versa.

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[QUOTE=Maucer;42030649]I may not have understood the article. Sure stress sometimes disturbs your cognition. But how did they come up with the conclusion that money problems uses so significantly brain power that they cannot handle money problems as well as others? We're talking about a quite big IQ drop. To me the obvious conclusion would be that on average intelligent people are more likely to have success in life and vice versa.[/QUOTE] Intelligence isn't nearly as big a factor as your socioeconomic position at birth. Sure, you could be a genius, but if you're living in a family that barely has the money to buy ramen noodles, that genius doesn't mean jack shit. You could be raised in an incredibly wealthy family and be a complete idiot, go to college, and land a fairly stable job despite being an idiot just because of the social standing you have from birth. Poverty is a very stressful situation. You are constantly anxious about your next bill, and if you're going to have enough money to pay for it and still afford food for your family. You aren't thinking of long-term sustainability and overarching goals and ways to improve your health and lifestyle, you're working for pennies to be able to survive. There's only the next payday and the next expense. You're constantly stressed from this, and stress is a massive detractor from mental/cognitive ability. If somebody's stressed, they won't be operating at their peak performance, and the impoverished are in an unending cycle of stress. Blaming the impoverished for being "less intelligent" is a horrible position to take. They might be, but they might not, but it's not the issue. You prioritize differently when you don't know if you're going to have a proper meal the next night. Middle-class kids tend to focus on school and stuff so they can go to college and build their own successes. Impoverished kids are under unhealthy amounts of stress, and often familial strife and alcoholism and other stuff by their impoverished parents who are trying to escape their cycle of constant stress. They're not necessarily less intelligent, they're just in a socioeconomic position that predisposes them to huge amounts of stress that severely damage their outlook on the future. They have no choice but to live day to day. You won't escape poverty with clever budgeting or outstanding intelligence except in a few rare cases.

As someone who has lived on poverty his whole life, it does indeed feel almost impossible to get out of this hole.

A surprising number of my work colleagues live on the next paycheck, usually they are out of money after a week due to house bills, car expenses, debts or whatever they spend their money on. Something still doesn't quite seem right though because they're still able to donate to charities, socialise or be human so maybe they're in poverty, maybe not and so the standard for poverty has just risen to something not easily recognisable in society. Just an IMO. Not like I know what it's like to be in poverty.

[QUOTE=.Isak.;42034548]Intelligence isn't nearly as big a factor as your socioeconomic position at birth. Sure, you could be a genius, but if you're living in a family that barely has the money to buy ramen noodles, that genius doesn't mean jack shit. You could be raised in an incredibly wealthy family and be a complete idiot, go to college, and land a fairly stable job despite being an idiot just because of the social standing you have from birth.[/QUOTE] Well that solely depends of the country. In Finland you can pretty much study anything if you have determination and will. Anyway what "could" happen does not mean anything , the point was about the [I]average.[/I] [QUOTE=.Isak.;42034548]Blaming the impoverished for being "less intelligent" is a horrible position to take. They might be, but they might not, but it's not the issue. You prioritize differently when you don't know if you're going to have a proper meal the next night. Middle-class kids tend to focus on school and stuff so they can go to college and build their own successes. Impoverished kids are under unhealthy amounts of stress, and often familial strife and alcoholism and other stuff by their impoverished parents who are trying to escape their cycle of constant stress. They're not necessarily less intelligent, they're just in a socioeconomic position that predisposes them to huge amounts of stress that severely damage their outlook on the future. They have no choice but to live day to day. You won't escape poverty with clever budgeting or outstanding intelligence except in a few rare cases.[/QUOTE] No fucking shit, nobody said they are necessarily less intelligent. Why do you always have to put it this way? You know we were talking about average, and on average the more intelligent ones are more likely to get better jobs, better education and better abilities to cope with regular daily tasks such as finances.

[QUOTE=pentium;42027224]We don't use pennies anymore.[/QUOTE] I'll take them.

From my experience with people, one of the biggest problems is that everyone feels like they need to own the newest iPhone, a nice car, and all this other shit even though it takes every penny they make and then some. Frugality is a dying concept this day and age.