This is your brain

On poverty:

A study published by the journal Science found that poverty makes it hard to concentrate. The researchers asked participants to think about how they would pay for an unexpected $1500 car repair bill before cognitive performance testing. The personal finance mental arithmetic problem was associated with a large drop in cognitive function among participants from lower income brackets. It seems to disrupt their ability to concentrate on the task at hand. In contrast, financially secure participants were unaffected by having to think about an unexpected expense. A similar pattern was found in farmers in India who were tested before the harvest when they were poor and after the harvest when more financially secure. Their post-harvest cognitive test performance was substantially better than pre-harvest scores. You worry and pray that the harvest will be a good one since the consequences are dire if it is not.

The poor often behave in less capable ways, which can further perpetuate poverty. We hypothesize that poverty directly impedes cognitive function and present two studies that test this hypothesis. First, we experimentally induced thoughts about finances and found that this reduces cognitive performance among poor but not in well-off participants. Second, we examined the cognitive function of farmers over the planting cycle. We found that the same farmer shows diminished cognitive performance before harvest, when poor, as compared with after harvest, when rich. This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or work effort. Nor can it be explained with stress: Although farmers do show more stress before harvest, that does not account for diminished cognitive performance. Instead, it appears that poverty itself reduces cognitive capacity. We suggest that this is because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for other tasks. These data provide a previously unexamined perspective and help explain a spectrum of behaviors among the poor. We discuss some implications for poverty policy.

From "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function"

Poverty creates a preoccupation with economic survival that seems to prevent people from performing as well as they are capable. Indignity on top of indignity.

On materialism:

A multinational survey found that religion messes up the relationship between income and happiness. Happiness increases with wealth in people who are not religiously observant. Those darn religious people were even happier when they were less economically secure. Religion puts on burden on the rich to help the less fortunate. The authors wonder if religion is a hindrance to economic development and individual prosperity. Those pesky anti-wealth norms.

Higher income is related to better psychological adjustment. We propose that religiosity attenuates this relation. First, in comforting the poor, religious teachings de-emphasize the importance of money, which would buffer low-income's psychological harms (religiosity as poverty buffer account). Second, religious teachings convey antiwealth norms, which would reduce income's psychological benefits (religiosity as antiwealth norms account). A study involving 187,957 respondents from 11 religiously diverse cultures showed that individual-level, as well as culture-level, religiosity weakens the relation between personal income and psychological adjustment in accordance with the religiosity as antiwealth norms account. Performance self-esteem mediated this relation. Religiosity's moderating effects were so pervasive that religious individuals in religious cultures reported better psychological adjustment when their income was low than high.

If you believe that wealth signifies your worth to society, you do not want those religious folks pooping on your party. They try to make you feel obligated to do something for the less fortunate. Buzzkill.

Jesus said you cannot worship God and materialism. This study said you cannot love God and riches as much as you should. Fancy that.