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I don't agree that being poor is a consequence of stupidity. Many children are born to poor parents. Some poor parents are very uneducated, a large percentage actually and a lot of them either don't stress or don't know how to encourage education and a motivation for success since a lot of them are also depressed.
Poor kids, especially poor babies, aren't stupid. (FWIW, I have met few stupid babies lol). There are a lot of environmental factors in play with growth and development. Even though 90% of behavior is genetic, many studies show that 10% "nurture" can be the determining factor in regards to whether one is educated or uneducated, a criminal, or a low-wage worker for their whole lives.
And you post primarily spoke of test scores of Americans versus other nations. People fail to realize or acknowledge that test scores, in an of themselves, are not an indicator of intelligence, especially not standardized tests. One has to take into effect the environment of the test taker, who is being tested, time of day, socioeconomics of testers, format of the test (some kids required a different method). Also one cannot test confidence or motivation which brings me to this quote:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Griffis
The assertion that poor people, or those on some form of government assistance, are "dumb and lazy" is completely baseless.
I've worked in social services for more than a quarter-century, having spent a significant portion of those years working directly with people who receive food stamps or a similar resource.
Yes, there are lazy people who could work but refuse to, and there are people who play the system and lie, etc.
But the majority of people on assistance actually work and many of them are perfectly bright and even well educated.
Another myth is the "people on assistance are drug addicts" one. My state recently drug tested all adult members of 1300 families who were receiving TANF (Temporary Aid to Needy Families) and found only 29 people total who tested positive for any drugs.
ITA with all of the above. I work in the public housing sector and the large majority of our residents are not the stupid, poor people that many seem to imagine. Many are very intelligent. A lot of them are also depressed and unmotivated individuals.
I do feel those who live in public housing generationally (at times we have had 3 generation families in public housing) have a lack of motivation in regards to certain achievements. They also lack confidence in many abilities because they are embarrassed of their ignorance (and ignorance/not knowing about something is not the same as being "stupid" which is knowing better but doing the wrong thing anyway). Many of them are afraid to ask for help. They are afraid to ask for advice because they feel they should know themselves and seek to know themselves but then are tricked and feel dumb due to that.
For instance, at a previous community I worked for, we had a lot of residents attend these "TV schools" they see these schools on TV and think that they can get some training and get a better job (sound familiar) and when they use up all that financial aid, take out student loans in order to get "training" they find out that what they trained for is either not "in demand" or that the school where they received training is not reputable or accredited. They are then on the hook to pay off loans and they lose financial aid they could have used at a reputable school. They thought they were doing the right thing in trying to get more education as education equals uplift but people have to be well researched in regards to technical training in particular for adults.
So to me, poor doesn't equal ignorant. My mom was poor. She was on welfare when I was a child and was a teen mom but she isn't stupid. She was raised in a middle class family but had kids young and was "kicked out" (basically my grandma let her stay at one of her rental houses) to live with he consequences of her decisions. She was a high school drop out but eventually went on to get a GED and college education at a reputable institution and owns her own business now. She was raised to be inquisitive, ask questions, be motivated, seek answers, etc. I was raised the same way but many of the kids in the neighborhood I lived in - poor kids, were not. I vividly remember a classmate of mine in 7th grade who told me he would "never be nothing." And he was serious. I just couldn't believe it. He would ask me what I thought I was going to get, getting on the principals' list all the time (this was during an awards ceremony and I had just got an award) and I told him my goals and that he could do things to if he wanted and he was adamant that he couldn't and wouldn't and so there was no point in trying. A lot of downtrodden people have that sort of mindset. They are not stupid, they just don't have any encouragement, motivation, or confidence in themselves. When they get up the nerve to better themselves, a lot of times they get burned and then revert back to that mindset.
It's call the MONG CYCLE, which I've tried to explain in previous threads, but this is a good one for it.
Is someone poor because they are stupid, or are they stupid because they are poor? The correct answer is BOTH.
Sure, there are sometimes unfortunate circumstances that are out of our control which may cause someone who is smart and hard working to fall on hard times, but those cases are few and far between. And, generally, a person who is smart and hard working doesn't find it to be too difficult to get back on their feet should such a disaster occur (generally speaking, at least).
Instead, the vast majority of poor people are poor because they are in the mong cycle: they make bad decisions (usually because they are stupid and don't know better), those bad decisions lead to bad consequences. The bad consequences lead to more bad decisions (this is what the researcher notes: that being in a bad situation causes you to "panic" and not think things through as well as you would otherwise). Those further bad decisions lead to even worse consequences, and so on and so forth.
It's basically just a cycle of: bad decision = bad consequence = more bad decisions, etc.
Generally the reason people make bad decisions in the first place is because they aren't aware of what the correct decision should be. "If you know better, you do better."
Drop out of school? Clearly a bad decision, but apparently that wasn't obvious to someone who would actually go ahead and do that.
Start doing drugs? Clearly a bad decision, but apparently that wasn't obvious to someone who would actually go ahead and do that.
Commit a crime? Clearly a bad decision, but apparently that wasn't obvious to someone who would actually go ahead and do that.
Etc.
The only way to end the cycle is to identify and then reject it. Identify that you are making bad decisions with your money/life/whatever and then you have to consciously decide to STOP making those bad decisions. Sure it helps to know what the right decisions are, and some people do need help with this, but overall it's up to the individual person who is inside their own mong cycle to do something about it. No one else can reject it for you.
Again, you have no evidence whatsoever for that statement.
The conclusion that poverty causes lower intelligence is easily disproved. While there may be a correlation between intelligence and poverty, it is the lower intelligence which results in poverty and not the inverse.
The sheer number of people who were raised in extreme poverty during the period of time between the beginning of the industrial revolution and the great depression and went on to create the prosperity of the middle and late 20th centuries is all the evidence that is needed.
I haven't read the book in question, but the review raises an interesting question. What if poverty and "slow-wittedness" are indeed self-reinforcing? It may be that although poor people are indeed stupid, that very stupidity is itself a consequence of being poor. Which suggests that the best way to break the cycle isn't just to make poor people poorer -- as so many seem inclined to do.
What I took away from the article when I initially read it and heard the report on NPR, is that people who are consumed by constant concerns regarding where their next meal will come from and whether or not they will be able to pay rent, electric and other bills are just that...consumed.
There is little to no room left to mentally process anything else.
I see it as no different than trying to think rationally after days with no sleep. Anyone who has ever worked 60-70-80 hour work weeks knows that decision-making is impaired, house hold accidents become more prevalent, the list is endless.
The only difference is that generally the long work hours stop. For many in poverty, it never ends.
It's call the MONG CYCLE, which I've tried to explain in previous threads, but this is a good one for it.
Is someone poor because they are stupid, or are they stupid because they are poor? The correct answer is BOTH.
Sure, there are sometimes unfortunate circumstances that are out of our control which may cause someone who is smart and hard working to fall on hard times, but those cases are few and far between. And, generally, a person who is smart and hard working doesn't find it to be too difficult to get back on their feet should such a disaster occur (generally speaking, at least).
Instead, the vast majority of poor people are poor because they are in the mong cycle: they make bad decisions (usually because they are stupid and don't know better), those bad decisions lead to bad consequences. The bad consequences lead to more bad decisions (this is what the researcher notes: that being in a bad situation causes you to "panic" and not think things through as well as you would otherwise). Those further bad decisions lead to even worse consequences, and so on and so forth.
It's basically just a cycle of: bad decision = bad consequence = more bad decisions, etc.
Generally the reason people make bad decisions in the first place is because they aren't aware of what the correct decision should be. "If you know better, you do better."
Drop out of school? Clearly a bad decision, but apparently that wasn't obvious to someone who would actually go ahead and do that.
Start doing drugs? Clearly a bad decision, but apparently that wasn't obvious to someone who would actually go ahead and do that.
Commit a crime? Clearly a bad decision, but apparently that wasn't obvious to someone who would actually go ahead and do that.
Etc.
The only way to end the cycle is to identify and then reject it. Identify that you are making bad decisions with your money/life/whatever and then you have to consciously decide to STOP making those bad decisions. Sure it helps to know what the right decisions are, and some people do need help with this, but overall it's up to the individual person who is inside their own mong cycle to do something about it. No one else can reject it for you.
Excellent post.
Another current example that illustrates this perfectly is the prevalence of "pay-day" loans: one of the surest paths to ruination ever devised.
I haven't read the book in question, but the review raises an interesting question. What if poverty and "slow-wittedness" are indeed self-reinforcing? It may be that although poor people are indeed stupid, that very stupidity is itself a consequence of being poor. Which suggests that the best way to break the cycle isn't just to make poor people poorer -- as so many seem inclined to do.
When I hear something was written my a psychologist, or a study was done, I immediately know it will be slanted. Now, how about saying stupidity creates poverty instead of the other way around. I am not saying all stupid people are poor or all poor people are stupid, but more stupid are poor than rich. And the stupidity comes first.
however, as mentioned in one of the excerpts above, worrying about money can cause people to score lower on iq tests. So this suggests that the correlation between poverty (or "scarcity" as the authors have it) and low iq is not entirely one-sided.
ohbull!!!
Worrying about money might lead people to do stupid things, I think we all know that.
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