The Rich Are Never Smarter Than The Poor
Let’s make it clear now
Why do some people who are underprovided struggle to survive? Why does this curse sometimes affect their descendants?
Housing Secretary Ben Carson Says Poverty Is A 'State of Mind' during his interview with MSNBC at that time. What I understood from his words was that the problem has always been all about mindset. “Get someone who has a good mentality and leave them almost naked in the streets. They will find solutions quickly to their problem; however, if you get the opposite one who is poor, they will remain tranquil, blaming for being in such a situation,” he exemplified.
What’s your opinion about what the former minister said?
To me, what he said was right and no one can deny that based on most of us, but did any study prove what he said? NO!
People who are categorized in the rich class see that the poor are always responsible for their mistakes. People who lack activity, are sometimes weak-willed and have bad sight deserve to be poor in the rich’s eyes. They believe that a little passion with a good mindset could transform a poor one into their world like many successful figures around us. So, they are dumb.
Because Ben Carson mentioned that the reason is their thinking, do you think that the rich are smarter than the poor to agree with what he said?
I am rich because I am smarter than you, poor and I am poor because I am less clever than you, rich. Do you think it is right according to Carson?
Let me ask you a question first. What’s your opinion about one rich man who received a good education and now has a good job being born into a poor family with a good mindset? Of course, a good mindset will play an important role in changing his way and behaving better, but a good mindset in a poor family will little by little shrink and fade if it competes against poverty all the time as poverty usually plagues people gradually.
Does it mean that it’s impossible for the poor to make a difference?
Depending on their thinking only (mindset) yes! but with other factors, no! And to answer this question, people who struggle should understand what the real meaning of poverty is.
Poverty disables cognitive function.
In 2010, Some Indian researchers carried out academic research on 464 farmers growing sugarcane. Those farmers depended on their crops for a living after they sold them which covered 60% of their yearly income. Once they harvested their crops, they acted like the rich. After they spent their money, they got back to their normal life until the harvest process got back again. The research was based on testing those people before and after harvest time to check their mentalities. An IQ test was given to every farmer to answer. They found out that most of the farmers answered badly and their performance was hideous the time before harvest. On the contrary, the test had some mistakes only after the harvest time. Although they were the same people with the same mentalities before and after, some external factors might have a great impact on mentalities. Their bad performance resulted from their busy minds to survive.
Was money the secret?
No, but what happened was not having money (poverty) impeded their cognitive function, disabling them from thinking as a result of thinking too much about their needs to face life. Our cognitive function has limited bandwidth, meaning, we can’t focus on many things at a time. So, mentalities are not enough as per Carson’s approach and many of us.
Imagine being committed to rent, expenses, basic life needs, and having only money to get by. Would your mindset help you go with your commitments into the money world?
According to Princeton University, in a series of experiments, the researchers found that pressing financial concerns had an immediate impact on the ability of low-income individuals to perform common cognitive and logic tests. On average, a person preoccupied with money problems exhibited a drop in cognitive function similar to a 13-point dip in IQ, or the loss of an entire night’s sleep.
This is due to the mental stress of thinking that leads them to make terrible financial decisions. So, the poor are not less smart than most think. It’s all about how busy their minds are with basic life needs nowadays.
Who are the poor from the Council of Europe’s perspective?
Council of Europe explained that poverty is when people’s assets are lower than what is thought to be enough (relative poverty), decent or socially acceptable (social poverty) according to the accepted standard of living in that society. Basic needs such as food, housing, medical insurance and clothing are completely essential and a shortage in one of them could lead to disturbance.
Children can’t think or their minds create ideas outside the box without eating or feeling insecure.
Another study stressed that poverty could affect negatively poor children’s minds and become less smart according to Nature Neuroscience. Besides, Family income was logarithmically associated with surface area, indicating that for every dollar in increased income, the increase in children’s brain surface area was proportionally greater at the lower end of the family income spectrum. Further, surface area mediated links between income and children’s performance on certain executive function tasks.
Children who know they are doing their best to survive get nervous easily and distracted as a result of what surrounds them. Therefore, they couldn’t make decisions appropriately.
What I personally believe in is Andrew Golis who said, “Maybe the psychology of poverty, which can seem so self-defeating and irrational, is actually the most rational response to a world of chaos and unpredictable outcomes.” Rather than make the same mistake all over again, you give up on love altogether when you know that the system will only break your heart. Such is the plight of the poor.”
Most of us when having the same circumstances normally act the same as poor people’s reactions.
At my university, they considered a group of the most superior students at that time and decided to hold a competition, dividing us into two groups. I was surprised when they gave us less time to think than the other group, but we were on track. After that, we were allowed to get extra time, but every extra second would be deducted later from the whole time of the competition since it was divided into rounds to measure how good we were at a subject. We were then in two minds about whether to use extra time or not, and the committee noticed that our performance started to decrease. Being stressed and hesitant, we were not able to decide whether to answer or fear that answers might be wrong and borrowed extra seconds to think again.
So sometimes even if you are a good decision-maker, but you end up chasing a mirage.
What would I do if I lived under the line of poverty and you, rich, came to me, saying in a quiet voice, “Listen, poverty stems from your mindset!!”
How can we overcome poverty?
People should get the basic needs to feel safe in life. I think you got my point that the one in charge of this task is the government in every country. Poor people shouldn’t be worried about whether every month they will get their next month’s needs or not. Once they lack their needs, don’t blame them for thinking again about how they can survive, for not being creative, for causing problems in society, and for not making progress in the country.
What I am really interested in is what the Chinese and Brazilian governments have done to their people in the past 5 years and how their countries have changed significantly for the better.
The Chinese nation has achieved a tremendous transformation from standing up, growing rich to becoming strong. Quoted.
There has been rapid economic growth, infrastructure development, technological advancements, and an increase in imports and exports according to what I got from CGTN article about the country.
The same exactly happened in Brazil which has a significant increase in its economy and the hero of the two countries is the government.
“The best way to help the poor is to make them uncomfortable in their own poverty,” Benjamin Franklin.
