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This is an interesting summary of an article published in the journal Science, which looks at how being poor taxes actually reduces your ability to think. Take note that doesn't mean 'poor people tend to be less intelligent' but quite the opposite 'the condition of poverty imposed a mental burden akin to losing 13 IQ points".

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/08/how-poverty-taxes-brain/6716/

The finding further undercuts the theory that poor people, through inherent weakness, are responsible for their own poverty – or that they ought to be able to lift themselves out of it with enough effort. This research suggests that the reality of poverty actually makes it harder to execute fundamental life skills. Being poor means, as the authors write, “coping with not just a shortfall of money, but also with a concurrent shortfall of cognitive resources.”

Before responding, the subjects were given a series of common tests (identifying sequences of shapes and numbers, for example) measuring cognitive function and fluid intelligence. In the easier scenario, where the hypothetical repair cost only $150, subjects classified as “poor” and “rich” performed equally well on these tests. But the “poor” subjects performed noticeably worse in the $1,500 scenario. Simply asking these people to think about financial problems taxed their mental bandwidth.

Reading that I thought of dakka, mostly because of the dozens and dozens of threads in which I've pointed out that social mobility in the US is so much lower than it is elsewhere in the world. Well, this study offers up one pretty good chunk of what might be going on - compared to other developed countries the poor and working poor are on a much lower income. The lower the income the greater financial stress, as there are more and more mishaps that could be financially catastrophic, and that stress uses up 'bandwidth' that could be used for other purposes, such as educating yourself or doing a better job parenting your children. The first would increase the chance that you might move up the socio-economic ladder, the latter might increase the chance your children might.

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1165425

On a similar topic its been shown poor people have better empathy than rich people. It's a more important life skill when poor, and just not needed in many professional jobs.

As far as the IQ drop I wonder how much of it is gakky school districts versus the stress of being poor.

 schadenfreude wrote:
As far as the IQ drop I wonder how much of it is gakky school districts versus the stress of being poor.

The study didn't look at whether rich or poor people are smarter, it was just looking at a person's intelligence with or without financial stress. So they got some folk to do some IQ test stuff, and then asked them a hypothetical about how they would go about finding $1,500 to get a car repaired. The wealthier participants, who would have stressed relatively little in figuring out how to find $1,500, suffered little when asked to do some more IQ test stuff. The poorer participants, who had to think a lot more about how to find $1,500, then suffered a 13 point drop when performing the same IQ tests again.


Thanks for the article on empathy. Reminds me of my favourite line from The God of Small Things, which I'm paraphrasing and totally butchering, "the strange charity that the poor will show to the rich when they are reduced to their level, even if only for a moment."

Interesting read... I'm not sure I'd totally buy it, but interesting nonethanless.

Here's an article claiming that location is a good indicator of social mobility:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html?hp&_r=2&

Couple of interesting charts that I can't post on dakka for some reason... I blame my insomia.

I know its a bit rude to ask a question like this without reading the article, but theres no way I'm reading an article that I don't have to until after October 7th.

Did they control for things like attentional loading and what not, as well as age because IQ is a pretty rubbish measure the older you get, so if the poorer sample was older than the richer sample that could be an issue. Still, it sounds pretty interesting and I've bookmarked this thread so I can read the article when I can

 motyak wrote:
I know its a bit rude to ask a question like this without reading the article, but theres no way I'm reading an article that I don't have to until after October 7th.

It was normally during exam time that I read everything I could find that had nothing to do with what I was supposed to be studying

Did they control for things like attentional loading and what not, as well as age because IQ is a pretty rubbish measure the older you get, so if the poorer sample was older than the richer sample that could be an issue. Still, it sounds pretty interesting and I've bookmarked this thread so I can read the article when I can

They performed the test with a $150 financial problem and again with a $1,500 financial problem. The $150 problem produced no reduction in IQ scores from the first to the second effort, so presumably attentional loading wasn't an issue.

And yeah, IQ is a pretty rubbish measure taken in isolation, but movements in IQ from one circumstance to the next can still be pretty useful, I think.

And yeah, IQ is a pretty rubbish measure taken in isolation, but movements in IQ from one circumstance to the next can still be pretty useful, I think.

That's a good point, it just makes it harder to judge if it is a significant difference or not when the original measure is unreliable. Its still really interesting though.

I read that study and while interesting... I don't quite buy it.

I've known some folks who were dirt poor and while they may not be "book" smart... they were wicked intelligent living in their current situation (aka, street smarts).

gak... I knew a high school drop out drug dealer who has fething BUSINESS savvy and great people skills... (wondering what's he doing now? nah... not going to look for him )

Well, if you know a couple of anecdotal people who might be considered outliers or just a few blips over on a bell curve...that totally refutes all the research. Just goes to show that researchers should think of the drug dealers before stating that every single human being fits into exactly the same parameters in their universally applied theory that makes no exceptions at all for other circumstances.

 motyak wrote:
That's a good point, it just makes it harder to judge if it is a significant difference or not when the original measure is unreliable. Its still really interesting though.

True. And even if it was reliable, well it's just one study in an incredibly complex and subjective field, so a big grain of salt and all that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:
I read that study and while interesting... I don't quite buy it.

I've known some folks who were dirt poor and while they may not be "book" smart... they were wicked intelligent living in their current situation (aka, street smarts).

It isn't just about high IQ or low IQ, though. IQ is just being used as a measure for how financial stress impacts thinking in general. So the impact a person under financial stress might suffer to their IQ will similarly impact other faculties. The study suggests it might impact parenting skills, for instance, which are more dependant on intuitive skills than analytical and logical skills.

I mean, basically the study is combining two things we already knew but never thought to put together;
1) Poor people tend to have more financial stress than rich people
2) Financial stress, like other forms of stress, uses up brain function that might otherwise be used for more productive thinking

These two elements combined indicate that poor people are under an additional burden to do all the kinds of things we associate with pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

From which I've speculated that this could be a pretty significant part of the explanation as to why countries with living standards for the poor and working poor might also have much greater levels of social mobility.

This makes sense. I have heard, that the more choices a person has to make in a day, the more taxing it is on their brain power and energy. Therefore, if you have to make more choices about where to find the $1,500 then that will reduce your capacity to make decisions on later IQ tests.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tough-choices-how-making

But what types of actions exhaust executive function and affect subsequent decision-making? Until recently, researchers focused on activities that involved the exertion of self-control or the regulation of attention. For instance, it's long been recognized that strenuous cognitive tasks—such as taking the SAT—can make it harder to focus later on. But recent results suggests that these taxing mental activities may be much broader in scope-and may even involve the very common activity of making choices itself. In a series of experiments and field studies, University of Minnesota psychologist Kathleen Vohs and colleagues repeatedly demonstrate that the mere act of making a selection may deplete executive resources.

I think it is more about how difficult those choices are.

Choices like whether to have a latte or a cappucino for elevenses are trivial and use a negligible amount of brain power.

A choice like whether to have surgery or chemo for your possibly terminal cancer, or just blow your life insurance on a 3 month holiday, take a lot more thinking about.

Either way, though, having to make a choice must use a bit of brain power.

I'm surprised this thread isn't attracting more of our resident Right-Wingers?

 Easy E wrote:
I'm surprised this thread isn't attracting more of our resident Right-Wingers?

I think it's fairly telling that when someone from the right posts an article in support of their position, the thread will see plenty of posts from the left. Sure, those posts might just be attempting to argue their own, but at least there's dialogue there.

Compare that with this thread, where a study chips away at one of the key elements of right wing belief, and the response of the right is just to ignore it.

Says a lot, I think.