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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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 Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 3:42 pm Post subject: Poverty seriously strains cognitive abilities |
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Poverty strains cognitive abilities, opening door for bad decision-making, new study finds
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In India, researchers tested the cognitive capacity and decision-making of farmers before the sugar cane harvest, when they were most strapped for money, and afterwards, when they had fewer financial woes.
The results showed that people wrestling with the mental strain of poverty suffered a drop of as much as 13 points in their IQ — roughly the same found in people subjected to a night with no sleep.
“Poverty is the equivalent of pulling an all-nighter,” said Harvard economist Sandhil Mullainathan, another of the study’s authors. “Picture yourself after an all-nighter. Being poor is like that every day.”
Mullainathan said previous research often has assumed that poor people are poor because they are somehow less capable than others, whether inherently or because of past trauma or other environmental factors in their lives. But, he said, what the latest study suggests is that the strain of poverty can tax the cognitive abilities of anyone experiencing it — and that those abilities return when the burden of poverty disappears. |
We shall see if this study holds up. In the meantime, this appears to be a significant rebuke to those who would blame the poor for their lot. |
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caniff
Joined: 03 Feb 2004
Location: All over the map
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| Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Self-actualization? |
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Nester Noodlemon
Joined: 16 Jan 2009
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| Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 1:00 am Post subject: |
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| I read somewhere that poverty strains financial ability. I can't recall where I read it so don't ask me to post the source. |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 7:07 am Post subject: Re: Poverty seriously strains cognitive abilities |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| In the meantime, this appears to be a significant rebuke to those who would blame the poor for their lot. |
No it doesn't. Nothing that appears in establishment American media is a significant rebuke of anything.
IQ doesn't have wild swings absent trauma. The subjects when under stress were less able to focus. IQ is a constant. The WaPo and researchers probably don't know anything about IQ other than Bad People believe in IQ and we're waging a Jihad against Bad People.
The reason the researchers used IQ, I assume, is that biological/genetic determinists are winning the hearts and minds. Nobody believes in equality, really. It would be easier to believe in flying pink unicorns. They tested the already-established impact of stress on decision making and spun it as a great victory for the Party. A million aspirational egalitarians feel comforted, if only for a moment.
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| Zhao and Mullainathan said that their findings, if accurate, could have profound implications for public policy. |
...just one hundred more years of egalitarian programs and finally we will have equality. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 7:33 am Post subject: Re: Poverty seriously strains cognitive abilities |
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| Titus wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| In the meantime, this appears to be a significant rebuke to those who would blame the poor for their lot. |
No it doesn't. Nothing that appears in establishment American media is a significant rebuke of anything.
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That's right, this is devastating to your 'Somalians are functional retards' thesis.
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| IQ doesn't have wild swings absent trauma. The subjects when under stress were less able to focus. IQ is a constant. The WaPo and researchers probably don't know anything about IQ other than Bad People believe in IQ and we're waging a Jihad against Bad People. |
That's not important. Their IQ was measured at times of stress, poverty. This shows that measurable IQ (as opposed to some Platonic, pure IQ) fluctuates significantly, an entire standard deviation, when subjects were subjected to conditions of poverty. |
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Titus
Joined: 19 May 2012
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| Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 7:59 am Post subject: |
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| That's right, this is devastating to your 'Somalians are functional retards' thesis. |
The IQ is approximately the same as a Scandinavian with Downs. Fact.
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| That's not important. |
It's very important, unless you're straining for proof of theology.
Let's assume you're correct and use your (my) Somalian example.
So when a 60-something IQ Somalian is exposed to stress he performs 13 points lower. Now we have a population with mid 50's. From "mild mental retardation" to "mentally retarded". Absent stress we have a population with Downs. A nation of engineers they're not.
Also, let's not ignore that the ability to manage and perform well under stress is itself influence by IQ. That is, the more intelligent the more able to cope. Anyway, the 'study' is regime propaganda and nothing else. Kuros, it does not demonstrate anything that you want it to. It is the equivalent of finding the face of Jesus in a brownie. |
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wishfullthinkng
Joined: 05 Mar 2010
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| Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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i find it fascinating that people are so pc these days and are brainwashed into believing that it's an okay way to live that they can't see what's right in front of them.
it's like gender equality. it's stupid. men and women are different, period. they excel at different things and compliment each other well. it doesn't mean that one is better than the other, but they are not "equal".
most people can't see that the world is much more complex than can be fathomed and like to try to equalize everything including people. sorry to break it to those who live in the pc world, but everything in life cannot be boxed into marginalized categories. different ethnicities of people, just like the sub-species of any other species of animals are different from one another, and not "equal". |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 6:03 am Post subject: |
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| Titus wrote: |
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| That's right, this is devastating to your 'Somalians are functional retards' thesis. |
The IQ is approximately the same as a Scandinavian with Downs. Fact.
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| That's not important. |
It's very important, unless you're straining for proof of theology.
Let's assume you're correct and use your (my) Somalian example.
So when a 60-something IQ Somalian is exposed to stress he performs 13 points lower. Now we have a population with mid 50's. From "mild mental retardation" to "mentally retarded". Absent stress we have a population with Downs. A nation of engineers they're not.
Also, let's not ignore that the ability to manage and perform well under stress is itself influence by IQ. That is, the more intelligent the more able to cope. Anyway, the 'study' is regime propaganda and nothing else. Kuros, it does not demonstrate anything that you want it to. It is the equivalent of finding the face of Jesus in a brownie. |
IQ is some result of genetic and environmental factors.
The above study, if confirmed by other studies (its still new and needs re-examination), demonstrates that poverty is a decidedly important environmental factor.
Also, Somalians are almost all poor. Thus, we should expect the IQ tests administered to be a standard deviation lower than that of countries where poverty is more rare. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2013 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
Also, Somalians are almost all poor. Thus, we should expect the IQ tests administered to be a standard deviation lower than that of countries where poverty is more rare. |
Now hold on. It's true that Somalians are almost all poor by global standards, but that doesn't necessitate that they be in a constant state of stress equivalent to the Indian farmers before the sugar cane harvest. Indeed, those farmers are poor both before and after the harvest by our standard; it's the stress, not the "poverty" itself, which seems to be harming their intellectual capabilities. Now, assuming the average Somalian's conditions are not literally as desperate as the sugar cane farmer right before harvest at all times places, they should experience fluctuations as well, and those fluctuations should all ready be averaged into their score. Moreover, scores from other places in the world should include such fluctuations as well, because there's no where in the world where people don't have problems like these to at least some extent, and we've seen plenty of examples on this forum of stressors that exist even in the first world. Hell, Koreans are probably some of the most highly stressed people on the planet, and a lot of that stress revolves around monetary matters.
Accordingly, we cannot simply credit Somalia a full standard deviation like you're suggesting; there may be some poverty handicap we could attribute to them, but it's going to be much smaller than that, representing the degree to which Somalian life is more frequently stressful and desperate on a day to day basis than life in another country. We'd also have to afford other countries such a handicap, even wealthy countries; take Korea's what, 107, and apply a handicap for how stressful their lives are, and they'll probably close in on Ashkenazi Jews. |
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