Do you feel that there is a psychology to poverty?

Yeah, some people make decisions based on a lot of things, some of them being social and economic status. But one can still make good decisions while poor, for example, getting sick and tired of being poor and trying to further your career, or even get one lol.

While I do beleive we create much or our reality by the thoughts we entertain and our choices, some aspects of poverty are simply hardwired into certain sub cultures. This is where the resiliency factor comes into play.

Why is it one kid gets out of the ghetto and becomes a professional while another remains a crack addict?

And, of course, in this economy many have been reduced to poverty throguh no fault of their own.

I am not even close to being poverty stricken, however, I have gone from being semi-retired with a good financial plan intact 5 years ago, to becoming VERY concerned about running out of money. I have lost a lot of income and investment interest that I was counting on skimming as passive income.

I’m all for positive thought and action, but, one can only take this mindset just so far.

Having a leper in the gutters of Calcutta visualizing that he will someday live in the Taj Mahal is pushing it.

Some poverty is created by choice and other poverty is entrenched and hard to break out of for many.

I was thinking about this the other day actually on a more personal level. I was recalling back to when my parents were married how both wanted to buy a big house in the burbs yet for the 10 years they were together then could never accomplish moving out of the crap apartments in the worst part of town. Then they got divorced and married mew people and both parents moved into big houses in the burbs. Parent A got divorced again, quit their high paying job, abused substances, and basically put them self back into a bad situation and now has a partner who’s supporting this lifestyle. Parent B bought a bigger house. Now obviously there are outside factors to consider but the one thing that really resounded with me is that parent A eventually fell into the patter of the rest of family A’s members even though parent A tried really hard to avoid doing that. I wonder if Parent A was always destined to live that life because that is how Parent A was raised and that is everything Parent A knew for most of their life.

However since my sister and I were raised during the better period of Parent A’s cycle does that mean we’ve now got a pass on that whole cycle since we weren’t raised in the “system” so to speak?

Just a thought I had driving to work….

There is psychology in almost everything that involves the human experience. The article stated we are in the verge of understanding how we could more effectively fine tune society’s efforts to assist those who need help in making their lives better, be self-sufficient.
Yet it seems the funding for this study would be cut. Maybe some of those who do not believe in it has narrowed down the psychology of being poor as simply being lazy?

Call me simplistic but I was struck by the last point he made. How to encourage people to sign up for Welfare. I would hope we’d be looking for ways to get people off Welfare and become more productive. Maybe this research is moving in the wrong direction.

Gadzooks, in a nutshell, I think the biggest problem here in the US is people do not know how to tap their inner Immigrant. There is a mini mart near my house ran by Middle Eastern people. Many think they got it because the government handed to them, no interest loans, grants, free money, etc. They put in long hours, more than I would see many Americans put in. They do not own the store, but the owner puts in many hours as well. After school and most of this summer, you will always see the rug rats in there doing something, working the register, stocking shelves, cleaning, etc. I am thinking those kids are learning job skills that by the time they are 16 they will be miles ahead of US kids who spent that time playing video games, text/sexting each other from the mall, playing games, and getting high, etc. I have met quite a few immigrants over the years and many have come here hardly speaking the language with less than $500 in their pocket. They believed they just had to get here and things would be OK. This was the land of opportunity and they can make their dreams come true. They didn’t expect it over night, but they expected it.

Most Yankees I met believe they should be handed something. Welfare, as the guy said, or no taxes at all. We Yankees want it all and we want it now. Many who get a windfall immediately go out and buy a larger house, more and bigger cars, a pleasure craft, some bling, electronic toys, clothes, etc, also doing some of that for friends and relatives. All that stuff that cost money to upkeep, or saddle you with a monthly payment. They do not have the discipline to buy one major toy, a better car and maybe a modestly better house and put the money back to work a few years more, then go hog wild. Poor people will stay poor because they want to work for the money instead of having the money work for them.

Then it might be hard to see that when you are being convinced you can’t have fun and excitement in your sober mind so you have to be buzzed or high on something, be it booze, drugs, etc.

As in a form of depression, the answer is yes.

Absolutely. Thought processes are a cause and effect loops. Some loops are better than others in that they create better effects than others. Those better loops need to be caused somehow by outside factors when they aren’t caused in the regular course of a person’s life as that article discusses.

Anyone who studies marketing knows that you can get masses of people to make certain decisions simply by changing the way you ask the questions. Society can definitely use this fact to its advantage.

@Jaxk I didn’t think the purpose of the study was to get people to sign up for welfare, but the idea was to see how “poor”, poeple who weren’t working and weren’t on welfare, would react when having a different paradigm to think about)their best moment.

It isn’t a psychology of poverty. It’s a psychology of people under different circumstances. You make different choices depending on available resources such as time and money and social capital and education.

The idea of upward mobility in the US is pretty much a myth. A very small number of people manage to move between the classes over the course of their lives. What mobility there is occurs in the wrong direction just as much as it does in the right direction.

Welfare programs are designed to give people the psychic space they need in order to be able to think about doing things that might get them to a place where they can support themselves. However, due to attitudes that taking a handout is bad, a lot of people don’t think they should take advantage of those programs, or they don’t know how to take advantage of them.

We want people who are eligible to take advantage of assistance, so as to get them out of poverty, not keep them in it. If a program doesn’t help people get out, then it needs to be redesigned, preferably using the scientific knowledge we have, in order to become more effective.

Behavioral sciences are probably going to help more than anything else because the problem is we don’t know what kinds of incentives work with what kind of people. Many people are fond of the idea that circumstances will motivate people to work. They argue that taking away support programs is what is needed, despite all the evidence that shows this isn’t the case. They’ll bring in anecdotal evidence of all kinds to support their assertions.

What is amazing is that anecdotal evidence flies in Congress. These people who presumable smart enough to get elected actually reason from lack of knowledge. I mean, it’s understandable when ordinary people use personal experience as a basis for generalizations, but when people in Congress do that? Makes me really glad I come from a well-off background.

@Schroedes13

I know you’re right but I would have been more impressed if they had provided a different paradigm that helped them find a job.

@Jaxk The thing is that welfare is supposed to help people make themselves stable enough to find a job. The problem with the welfare system in many countries is that people aren’t using it as a stepping stone, but usually as the means of subsistence itself!