Mental impoverishment

A few days ago, I discussed a study published in Science that showed the impact poverty and financial concerns have on cognitive function. Matthew Yglesias does a much better job in framing the results that I did.

But the impact on cognitive skills is especially noteworthy for how it should influence our understanding of poverty. Poor people—like all people—make some bad choices. There is some evidence that poor people make more of these bad choices than the average person. This evidence can easily lead to the blithe conclusion that bad choices, rather than economic conditions, are the cause of poverty. The new research shows that this is—at least to some extent—exactly backward. It’s poverty itself (perhaps mediated by the unusually severe forms of decision fatigue than can affect the poor) that undermines judgment and leads to poor decision-making.

There is a large body of evidence that indicates stress disrupts attention, memory, and problem-solving. Chronic stress even causes some areas of the brain to shrink and atrophy.

Yglesias puts the study findings in the context of our nation's increasingly callous and punitive approaches to the people struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder.

This paternalistic notion that we should be relatively stingy with help, and make sure to attach it to complicated eligibility requirements and tests, may itself be contributing to the problem of poverty. At home or abroad, the strain of constantly worrying about money is a substantial barrier to the smart decision-making that people in tough circumstances need to succeed. One of the best ways to help the poor help themselves, in other words, is to simply make them less poor.

If God were as stingy with grace and love as our society is towards those in need, our spiritual poverty would be eternal.