“And in the last few years the two disciplines sort of combined forces. And we just became interested in cognitive function and its impact when people struggle with not having enough.”
Mr. Shafir and his team did two experiments. One took place at a shopping center in New Jersey. Another was carried out among sugar cane farmers in rural India.
The New Jersey experiment involved individuals with low paying jobs and others said to belong to the middle class. All the volunteers were asked what they would do if their cars needed repairs. The researchers then performed tests for reason, such as choosing which shape fits in a pattern of shapes.
The volunteers were given two possible imaginary situations. In the first, the car repairs cost $150. In the second, the repairs cost $1,500.
“And what we found is, when we looked at the cases where the financial scenario in the background was not too challenging, the poor and the rich performed equally well on all the cognitive tests.”
Not so when the researchers raised the repair costs to $1,500.
“Once we tickled their minds with financially more challenging problems, now the poor performed significantly worse.”
The study showed the poorer individuals lost about 13 intelligent quotient, IQ, points on average. This is about the loss experienced when a person has not slept for one night.
The scientists then wondered if they would see the same result outside the controlled environment of a New Jersey shopping mall. And they wanted to know if the same person reacted differently when he was rich and when he was poor.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25