Reply to Poor, greedy, coarse behavior - what would you call it?

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Poor, greedy, coarse behavior - what would you call it?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It sounds like you're describing scarcity mindset -- which is a mental shift due to the perception of scarce resources.

Our brains have limited bandwidth, so any attention afforded to one immediate problem cannot be used somewhere else. 
The scarcity mindset is not always a bad thing; it was once an evolutionary advantage.
Adaptation... SURVIVAL.
When early humans lacked essential resources like food and shelter, this mindset helped them focus on acquiring what was most important. 
Even today, it can help us concentrate on tasks in the face of deadlines.

[b]However... the scarcity mindset makes escaping poverty extremely difficult.

You can’t invest in the future when your present needs are not met. 
Limited money and extreme focus on the short-term make it hard to plan ahead.

It’s having to repeatedly buy cheap pairs of boots versus buying one expensive pair that will last your whole life.

While it makes sense at the time to buy daily necessities like food rather than pay bills, putting off those tasks ends up costing more in the long run when you have to pay late fees.
People are not poor because they make bad decisions; people remain poor because poverty inhibits their ability to make good decisions.
[/b]
The effects of poverty and scarcity go beyond just the brain. The link between poverty and poor health is well-established, and to guarantee adequate healthcare to all Americans, we have to fix the economic conditions that make them prone to sickness in the first place. Chronic stress, often the result of constant financial worries, puts millions of Americans at increased risk for a litany of preventable illnesses like heart disease, depression, weight gain, and more.
[b]
Furthermore, kids who grow up in poverty suffer from the consequences their entire lives. Child poverty can impact brain development, which may lead to mood disorders such as depression and substance abuse later in life. In the United States, children in poverty have lower standardized test scores, are more likely to drop out of school, and are less likely to go to college.[/b]

And there’s an important — but hard to measure — effect on our communities too.
[b]When we feel that money and goods are scarce, we start to think of our neighbors and fellow citizens as competitors rather than teammates united by our shared humanity.[/b] 
When we believe that the economy is zero-sum, we also come to believe that helping another person comes at our own expense. 
Helping our fellow humans escape poverty, debt, and misery becomes a disservice to the wealthy, rather than an expression of compassion and justice at the foundation of a society of equally free and valued people.

Read this article OP, I think it may help.

https://www.npr.org/2017/03/23/521195903/how-the-scarcity-mindset-can-make-problems-worses

[/quote]

Great info -- especially the bolded areas.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics