does scarcity make you dumb?
Sep. 21st, 2013 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twoelevena few weeks ago, i read a review of a book advancing that thesis: if you badly lack something -- money, time, social interaction -- that lack makes you think more poorly. it seemed like an interesting hypothesis, and it makes a certain amount of sense: the more time one spends worrying about how one is going to find the lacking thing, the less time one has for thinking about other things.
the parallels the authors make between lacking money and lacking time seem to work for me, too. i get overscheduled, even though i know better; i'll agree to do something interesting even though i have too much to do already. that sounds a lot like an impulse purchase. i'll even screw up the good habits i have for preventing getting overscheduled: i'll work during times i've reserved for getting caught up and relaxing, which means that i'll get further behind and further stressed about it. that also sounds like spending the money earmarked for savings.
i'd saved the review because it sounded interesting... even though i have more than a shelf-meter of books to read already, and not enough time to read them. the authors study poverty and thinking, so i figured they had something to back their claims up.
they do. they recently published a paper on the subject: Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function. as fuzzy-subjects papers go, it's pretty good, despite its limitations.
as is typical for a lot of fuzzy-subjects and medical-research papers, they gather continuously-valued data (income and results on some tests) and then throw most of the information content away by dividing people into two groups at the median value of one of them (in this case, "rich" and "poor"). they could draw stronger conclusions if they kept all the information they gathered and used a statistical method (linear regression, say) that could work with it. *sigh*
their experimental design is missing controls, which means they can't actually draw the conclusions they want. they are other hypotheses which would give the same results. for example, one experiment consisted of priming people to think about monetary difficulties and then giving them tests of mental ability. the hypothetical monetary problems they used were car repairs costing either $150 or $1500.
as they expected, thinking about the more expensive hypothetical repairs caused "poor" people to do worse on the tests. also as expected, both hypothetical cases had little effect on "rich" people, since neither one really poses a hardship for them. they ought to have posed a question that both "rich" and "poor" would find expensive, since otherwise, we don't know how the rich do when faced with analogous situation. it could be that "the poor" are poor because they can't handle money, and big difficulties throw them for a loop, but "the rich" just take it in stride.
i'm not going to call the hypothesis proven, but i think they're probably on the right track. with better experiments, they probably can prove that they're right, which has interesting policy consequences.
the authors tack one on to the end of their paper:
the US is especially bad at inflicting needless complexity on the poor. an unrelated economist article mentions in passing that "[The] Cato [Institute] counts 126 separate federal anti-poverty programmes, including 72 that provide 'cash or in-kind benefits to individuals'.", each with their own rules and paperwork. this may be, as the study authors say, too taxing for the poor. (i, of course, prefer my own scheme, built around uncle milty (friedman)'s negative income tax.)
the parallels the authors make between lacking money and lacking time seem to work for me, too. i get overscheduled, even though i know better; i'll agree to do something interesting even though i have too much to do already. that sounds a lot like an impulse purchase. i'll even screw up the good habits i have for preventing getting overscheduled: i'll work during times i've reserved for getting caught up and relaxing, which means that i'll get further behind and further stressed about it. that also sounds like spending the money earmarked for savings.
i'd saved the review because it sounded interesting... even though i have more than a shelf-meter of books to read already, and not enough time to read them. the authors study poverty and thinking, so i figured they had something to back their claims up.
they do. they recently published a paper on the subject: Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function. as fuzzy-subjects papers go, it's pretty good, despite its limitations.
as is typical for a lot of fuzzy-subjects and medical-research papers, they gather continuously-valued data (income and results on some tests) and then throw most of the information content away by dividing people into two groups at the median value of one of them (in this case, "rich" and "poor"). they could draw stronger conclusions if they kept all the information they gathered and used a statistical method (linear regression, say) that could work with it. *sigh*
their experimental design is missing controls, which means they can't actually draw the conclusions they want. they are other hypotheses which would give the same results. for example, one experiment consisted of priming people to think about monetary difficulties and then giving them tests of mental ability. the hypothetical monetary problems they used were car repairs costing either $150 or $1500.
as they expected, thinking about the more expensive hypothetical repairs caused "poor" people to do worse on the tests. also as expected, both hypothetical cases had little effect on "rich" people, since neither one really poses a hardship for them. they ought to have posed a question that both "rich" and "poor" would find expensive, since otherwise, we don't know how the rich do when faced with analogous situation. it could be that "the poor" are poor because they can't handle money, and big difficulties throw them for a loop, but "the rich" just take it in stride.
i'm not going to call the hypothesis proven, but i think they're probably on the right track. with better experiments, they probably can prove that they're right, which has interesting policy consequences.
the authors tack one on to the end of their paper:
[P]olicy-makers should beware of imposing cognitive taxes on the poor just as they avoid monetary taxes on the poor. Filling out long forms, preparing for a lengthy interview, deciphering new rules, or responding to complex incentives all consume cognitive resources. Policy-makers rarely recognize these cognitive taxes; yet, our results suggest that they should focus on reducing them. Simple interventions such as smart defaults, help filling forms out, planning prompts, or even reminders may be particularly helpful to the poor.(footnote numbers omitted for clarity)
the US is especially bad at inflicting needless complexity on the poor. an unrelated economist article mentions in passing that "[The] Cato [Institute] counts 126 separate federal anti-poverty programmes, including 72 that provide 'cash or in-kind benefits to individuals'.", each with their own rules and paperwork. this may be, as the study authors say, too taxing for the poor. (i, of course, prefer my own scheme, built around uncle milty (friedman)'s negative income tax.)