4 psychological traits that prevent you from getting out of poverty
Miscellaneous / / January 31, 2022
Poverty is defined as a situation where a person's income is not enough to meet basic needs. She has a lot of reasons, including external ones. It is completely dishonest to say that low income is the choice and fault of a person, and becoming richer is easy, you just have to want to. Of course, this is not so.
But there are some psychological features that contribute to financial failure.
1. Low self-esteem
When talking about self-esteem, they often focus on the internal suffering of a person and problems in relationships. But it also affects other aspects of life, including financial ones. And quite stronglyF. Drago Self‑Esteem and Earnings / IZA Discussion Paper.
Man with low self-esteem often simply does not believe that he can claim a good income. Even worse, if he believes that for some reason he does not deserve it. Therefore, he accepts a job with poor conditions and a low salary, does not ask for a raise. And they are easy to manipulate. All these “don’t like it - put the application on the table, there are a hundred people like you behind the fence” and “you should be grateful that you are paid for such work at all ”- these are no arguments, but a game at a low self-esteem.
2. Stress
Being in stressful situations is not always bad. This forces the body to mobilize and also trains it to cope with similar challenges in the future. simplerM. D. Seery, E. A. Holman, R. C. Silver Whatever does not kill us: cumulative lifetime adversity, vulnerability, and resilience / Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
With long-term stress, things are much worse. It influences brainE. J. Kim, b. Pellman, J. J. Kim Stress effects on the hippocampus: a critical review / Learning & Memorywhich can impair memory. Constant anxiety and anxiety make it difficult to sensibly assess the situation and make the right decisions, including financial ones.
And here it is also important to note that this is a vicious circle: lack of money causes stress. Because of what a person is partially losesS. Mullainathan, E. Shafir Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much the ability to process information, analyze the situation and prioritize. And money, of course.
3. Learned helplessness
There are two views on this feature, and put forward by the same authors. Initially they heldJ. b. Overmier, M. E. Seligman Effects of inescapable shock upon subsequent escape and avoidance responding / Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology a series of experiments on animals and came to a disappointing conclusion. If someone is in a negative situation for a long time, which he cannot control in any way, he gets used to it and loses all faiththat can make a difference.
In humans, the processes are more complicated than in animals, so everything is not so straightforward. Yet learned helplessness observedD. S. Hiroto, M. E. P. Seligman Generality of Learned Helplessness in Man / Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and with us. Such a person is passive, does not try to improve his life, even if he finds himself in favorable conditions, and is not ready to make decisions. Perhaps in the past he tried to do something, but, having burned himself several times, he no longer shows any activity.
The updated version suggests that one does not learn helplessness, but rather vice versaJ. b. Overmier, M. E. Seligman Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience / Psychological Review. He is born helpless, and then, under the influence of circumstances and the world around him, he acquires the belief that his actions bring results. Or not getting.
Be that as it may, the bottom line is that if someone has not had a positive experience throughout his life, has not received a reward for his efforts, he puts up with the circumstances. And poverty too.
4. Negative attitudes
In the life of each of us there are many installations that help to make decisions faster. For example, the theses “if I go to training, I won’t regret it, but if I don’t go, I might regret it” or “it’s impossible to be the best at everything” motivate us to get together in the gym or not make a tragedy from the second place in the competition.
Installations we we scoop literally from everywhere - from family, personal experience, books and so on. But they don't always work well. Sometimes they are outdated, not effective specifically for us, or formed by mistake, because the result of some action was random. However, they continue to affect our lives because we usually do not notice them.
Negative attitudes regarding material well-being can make you inactive. For example, if a person firmly believes that all the rich are criminals, and he does not want to do anything illegal, then he will not strive for more income. And if a representative of the creative profession believes that the artist must be hungry, otherwise it is not art, then he will not be able to ask for decent payment for his work.
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