Why Can’t More Poor People Escape Poverty? A radical new explanation from psycho

[Freeper]

dkf Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Fri Jun-10-11 02:55 PM
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Why Can’t More Poor People Escape Poverty? A radical new explanation from psychologists.
   
Flannery O’Connor once described the contradictory desires that afflict all of us with characteristic simplicity. “Free will does not mean one will,” she wrote, “but many wills conflicting in one man.” The existence of appealing alternatives, after all, is what makes free will free: What would choice be without inner debate? We’re torn between staying faithful and that alluring man or woman across the room. We can’t resist the red velvet cake despite having sworn to keep our calories down. We buy a leather jacket on impulse, even though we know we’ll need the money for other things. Everyone is aware of such inner conflicts. But how, exactly, do we choose among them? As it turns out, science has recently shed light on the way our minds reconcile these conflicts, and the result has surprising implications for the way we think about one of society’s most intractable problems: poverty.

In the 1990s, social psychologists developed a theory of “depletable” self-control. The idea was that an individual’s capacity for exerting willpower was finite—that exerting willpower in one area makes us less able to exert it in other areas. In 1998, researchers at Case Western Reserve University published some of the young movement’s first returns. Roy Baumeister, Ellen Bratslavsky, Mark Muraven, and Dianne Tice set up a simple experiment. They had food-deprived subjects sit at a table with two types of food on it: cookies and chocolates; and radishes. Some of the subjects were instructed to eat radishes and resist the sweets, and afterwards all were put to work on unsolvable geometric puzzles. Resisting the sweets, independent of mood, made participants give up more than twice as quickly on the geometric puzzles. Resisting temptation, the researchers found, seemed to have “produced a ‘psychic cost.’”

Over the intervening 13 years, these results have been corroborated in more than 100 experiments. Researchers have found that exerting self-control on an initial task impaired self-control on subsequent tasks: Consumers became more susceptible to tempting products; chronic dieters overate; people were more likely to lie for monetary gain; and so on. As Baumeister told Teaching of Psychology in 2008, “After you exert self-control in any sphere at all, like resisting dessert, you have less self-control at the next task.”

In addition, researchers have expanded the theory to cover tradeoff decisions, not just self-control decisions. That is, any decision that requires tradeoffs seems to deplete our ability to muster willpower for future decisions. Tradeoff decisions, like choosing between more money and more leisure time, require the same conflict resolution as self-control decisions (although our impulses appear to play a smaller role). In both cases, willpower can be understood as the capacity to resolve conflicts among choices as rationally as possible, and to make the best decision in light of one’s personal goals. And, in both cases, willpower seems to be a depletable resource.

http://www.tnr.com/article/environment-energy/89377/pov...
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1271636

The answer is very simple, we have a political party and political movement that has convinced people for the past 50 years or so that only with the aid of the govt can people make it. This same political party also helps subsidize poverty by throwing the poor a few scraps from the table then promising every 2 years that if you vote for them they will give you more scraps if only the evil repukes don't stop them.
When you are constantly told that you are owed a living from the labor of other people what motivation is there for you to become one of the producers that they will only take away from you?

DebJ Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Fri Jun-10-11 03:23 PM
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6. Oh..so the point is poor people remain poor because of their
   
own decision-making and will-power capacity. What a load of crap. And that savings account would be soooooo helpful, because it helps them with impulse control. Good God in heaven above, there is no money to put in savings accounts when you are poor.

This article infuriates me.

Truth can be brutal. In most cases people are poor because of the choices they made in life.

RagAss (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Fri Jun-10-11 04:02 PM
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13. Free Will is a taught delusion.

 

Uncle Joe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Fri Jun-10-11 04:42 PM
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16. I believe that part of this analysis hits the nail on the head, that being
   
trade-offs do sap willpower but the article seems to take the opposite approach to the obvious and logical answer.

A living wage, and universal single payer health-care would go a long way toward eliminating those trade off decisions that people living on the margin have to make, thus their willpower would not take so many psychic hits.

This analysis is a strong argument for much greater social spending to lift the poor and lower middle income class to a solid middle class.

One other point, if a walk through nature helps to restore willpower, greater emphasis must be placed on the environment, greener cities with easy access to the natural world.

Thanks for the thread, dkf.

Yep nothing beats poverty better than independence on govt. 

[Skul]

dkf Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Fri Jun-10-11 02:55 PM
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Why Can’t More Poor People Escape Poverty?

They can't/won't keep a job??

[compaqxp]

They can't/won't keep a job??

To be fair getting and keeping a job can be hard right now, especially with the jobs these people would likely be going into. Not to mention that the jobs most people in poverty get will only be enough to keep them living on a paycheck to paycheck basis, thus never getting out of poverty. Sure many likley ended up at this point from bad choices, but at least they work.

And then of course you've got the others on welfare, happy to live in poverty as long as the government pays them too. Then again, I know people on welfare who seem to be well off.

[Skul]

To be fair, getting and keeping a job is easy as long as you're willing to work for your pay.
The company hires you with the understanding that you will make an effort.
If you shirk you duty, lay down, cause problems, you're gone.
The company is not requirred to provide you a job.
It is your responsibilty to them, that will keep your job.

[thundley4]

To be fair getting and keeping a job can be hard right now, especially with the jobs these people would likely be going into. Not to mention that the jobs most people in poverty get will only be enough to keep them living on a paycheck to paycheck basis, thus never getting out of poverty. Sure many likley ended up at this point from bad choices, but at least they work.

And then of course you've got the others on welfare, happy to live in poverty as long as the government pays them too. Then again, I know people on welfare who seem to be well off.

A lot of people live pay check to pay check or darn close to it and aren't in poverty.  

[GOBUCKS]

Not to mention that the jobs most people in poverty get will only be enough to keep them living on a paycheck to paycheck basis, thus never getting out of poverty. Sure many likley ended up at this point from bad choices, but at least they work.

Most people who are in crappy jobs are crappy workers. The few who aren't stand out clearly from the losers around them and are noticed. They don't stay in the crappy job for long. That's called advancement, and it's how someone who doesn't inherit the business can become a success. The problem is it's hard and it often takes a long time.

When DUmmy goes into a crappy job, he expects to always be in a crappy job because he isn't instantly successful. That's called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[BlueStateSaint]

To be fair, getting and keeping a job is easy as long as you're willing to work for your pay.
The company hires you with the understanding that you will make an effort.
If you shirk you duty, lay down, cause problems, you're gone.
The company is not requirred to provide you a job.
It is your responsibilty to them, that will keep your job.

Ding!  Ding!  Ding!

We haff Teh Winnah!

H5 . . .

[LC EFA]

dkf Donating Member (1000+ posts)  Fri Jun-10-11 02:55 PM
Original message
Why Can’t More Poor People Escape Poverty? A radical new explanation from psychologists.

[drivel snip]

Blah Blah Blah.

Quit making excuses you lazy ****.

[MrsSmith]

The Dims know exactly how to fix this "problem" in humans...they'll just follow the same path as all the other dictators and make all the decisions for us.  




(Just for the record, in 1991, I had 4 children and made $4.50 an hour.  That was dire poverty.  However, I managed to "escape" poverty by the very simple action of working hard and keeping a job.  I made a commitment to take care of my kids, keep a roof over their heads and provide food and clothing...so avoided situations that tempted me to spend money on alcohol and drugs.  It's a road that many, many people follow.  If I can do it, anyone can do it.)

[I_B_Perky]

To be fair getting and keeping a job can be hard right now, especially with the jobs these people would likely be going into. Not to mention that the jobs most people in poverty get will only be enough to keep them living on a paycheck to paycheck basis, thus never getting out of poverty. Sure many likley ended up at this point from bad choices, but at least they work.

Horseshit. I started out at  national chain restaurant in 1983 as a cook. $3.35 an hour. I worked harder than everyone else, put up with not getting raises, went to school to get a degree at the same time and eventually moved up to a fairly high position. Why? High turnover. I stayed there when other people moved on for 10 or 20 cents more on the hour. After 4 years, I rapidly moved up. They figured out that I was gonna stay. That is called opportunity. I don't work there anymore now. Moved on to bigger and better things.  In my current job, 16 years, I have moved up as people have left. I took over their jobs willingly and did them better than they did. Saved the organization money. A job opened up in another department recently and I got it. 12 percent increase. When I told the big  boss why I took the job, purely financial reasons, she offered to match it. As of right now, I haven't made a decision. You make your own bed, and if that bed is not soft then it is your own fault.

And then of course you've got the others on welfare, happy to live in poverty as long as the government pays them too. Then again, I know people on welfare who seem to be well off.

Exactly. I've been poor. Things got bad back in the late 70's and Pa Perky would not take welfare. It was a stigma back in the 70's. We grew our own food at granddad Perky's farm. Dad, brother Perky and I cut yards that summer. I had 30 yards I cut... and this was back before weed eaters made it easy to trim... you was on your hands and knees with a pair of clippers... and the money went to paying the electric bill. My older brother did the same.  It made me want to not be poor. Now we got welfare parasites that get food, money, housing, cell phones, and free health care for crying out loud. Why wouldn't they stay "poor"? 

Pisses me off. It should hurt to be poor so you don't wanna be there anymore.

[Big Don]

RagAss (1000+ posts)  Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list    Fri Jun-10-11 04:02 PM
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13. Free Will is a taught delusion.

Forced at gunpoint to type that idiocy?