Analysis: How poverty can drive down intelligence
pbs.org
pbs.org
I live surrounded by thousands of people in NYCHA housing, as well as live in an area with a poverty rate in the 40 percent range. Now, one thing that strikes me every day, and moreso in the warmer months, is the amount of noise people live within. In stores, a radio plays everything including commercials, while in the courtyards of the buildings people blast music at extremely high levels. And it's not the opera they're blasting, either. It's music that demands attention with massive bass. Cars park with their trunks open doing the same. Now if children grow up in these environments, how in the world can they have sharpened minds if they're assaulted by loud, distracting noise during every weekend and evening?
I don't know how strong a factor this is globally, but I'm pretty confident it's something that should be researched and perhaps, just like we have nutritional health research and recommendations, we should also have 'environmental' ones that include noise levels and effects on children and stress. The poor need it more than anyone since they have no choice. The rest of us move (or help gentrify away noise, if I'm cynical).
Some people, including medical professionals, will lump me into the ADD camp; others not. The condition and diagnosis themselves seem broad and with unclear boundaries. Perhaps think of the "autistic spectrum" as a superficial (and insufficient; nonetheless) comparison.
I'm very sensitive to human noise; I cannot "just tune it out" and concentrate despite its presence. I spent years, decades, struggling with aspects of school, work, society, that insisted I do and that I just needed to "get used to it".
I agree with other comments here that greater consideration needs to be given to environment. For myself, people would wonder how the hell I did something ([I removed my examples as, in combination, they are a bit more personally identifying than I'd like to leave, here.])
But when it came to environment, no one was willing to listen to me. I didn't need enormous expenditure, just a simple accommodation.
When I look at so many contemporary problems, one of my first thoughts is simply, "fix the environment".
And have some basic belief in people, that wherever they're at, they'll actually tell you what they need. If you'll only listen.
You haven't walked a mile in their shoes. So, don't presume to tell them how to do it.
P.S. At home, I ended up with neighbors who blasted sub-woofer car stereos frequently and for hours on end, at times -- anytime between 8 am and 10 pm, and sometimes at 1 am when they got home and listened to a couple of songs while parked, before going in.
For me, this triggered a very strong "fight or flight" reaction. And, when you are in that state -- when I am -- there is simply no access to higher-level cognitive functions and memory. They are simply "not there".
There is no thinking yourself out of that problem, when you're in the midst of it. There is no thinking going on, on that level.
I just saw a quote from a Martin Luther King Jr. interview (I haven't seen the interview, yet). It ran something like:
You can't expect people to 'pull themselves up by their bootstraps' when they have no boots.
People in poverty, in poor and dangerous neighborhoods, want better neighborhoods. Better schools. Jobs.
Try giving them that. Instead of a bunch of guilt they don't really deserve, and often already have enough of -- internalized -- on their own.
How do I know this? Through my own, different experience, where the few people who did respect and act upon what I asked for, got much better performance out of me.
I have no problem with people who want a noisier environment. I really couldn't care less, and if it works for them, great! Just don't insist that it be my environment. (Nor that I perpetually pick up their slack.)
(And, in case anyone wants to bring up "collaboration", I actually am quite good at it. I'd end up with connections throughout multinationals having 10's of thousands of employees. Genuine, and highly productive, connections.
I didn't need to sit next to them and work all day to tune out their phone calls and cube meetings, in order to achieve this.)
First, Open Plan offices pack more people in a smaller space. It's measurably cheaper than proper individual offices, or even 3-4 people offices. And what can be measured tends to be optimised.
Second, whatever they tell you about the supposed benefits is but a sales pitch to get you to accept that we should all work in boiler rooms.
Third, many actually believe their own lies. One big reason is that despite having their desk at the Open Plan like everyone else, they're not subjected to half of the inconveniences: they spend most of their time in meetings, because that's what managers and executives do (coordinate and decide). They often have their desk closer to the corners of the Open Plan, where it's quieter, and they don't have everyone passing by taking a glance at their screen behind their back.
Fourth, good luck criticising your work environment without being perceived as the outlier that cannot adapt. I once did, an the HR lead "checked" by asking people face to face what they thought about the noise. Of course nobody told to her face that there was too much noise, most were still on probation, and they didn't want to appear as though they didn't fit in.
There is one solution: unions. You're not the only one who can't stand noise, you're just the only one crazy enough to actually talk about it.
An exercise that can help when anxiety like this hits is practicing some mindfulness. Instead of sitting there in a loop thinking about how terrible the thing causing your anxiety is and how you just want it to go away, try to observe the feelings of anxiety like you're a scientist studying it instead. Where in the body are the sensations located, what kind of sensations are they, etc. Really try to focus on the sensations of anxiety as opposed to what is triggering it. The goal isn't to fix the anxiety or make it go away, just observe it and let it pass on its own. Practicing a body scan meditation daily would likely help you prepare for your next bout of anxiety (try this one https://youtu.be/_DTmGtznab4). Do this enough times and hopefully that pattern that is triggering your anxiety won't have as much of a hold on you. I've heard CBT for anxiety is also useful, though haven't tried it myself. Good luck!
In particular, these comments explain very well the kind of problems one may have when trying to concentrate on a task: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13960208
Besides, it's hard even to define intelligence. Is Einstein more intelligent than Mozart? Our usual approach is to say "I know intelligence when I see it" but that usually results in arguments from personal incredulity.
Sure, you can study/practice and improve your score, but so can the other guy, and the relative difference between your scores remains largely the same.
Poverty just keeps you busy trying to fulfill basic needs (like the lowest in Maslow's hierarchy of needs) and you can't pursue more abstract goals.
Surviving while poor is not easy.
Until you have felt the ever present unease, fear for safety, and experienced how much mental bandwidth is taken up by simply trying to survive, you won’t understand, and it’s easy to toss off glib dismissals of people in this situation.
In my time living in my car (already lucky that I had one to live in), I met all types when hanging out on the street.
Labourers who had accidents and for one reason or another didn’t qualify for disability. An architect who had designed many of the residential towers in the CBD, but got hooked on meth and slowly squandered it all and alienated everyone who once cared for him. People like myself who had no support network nearby, and got the boot when the shit hit the fan in the GFC.
I lucked out in being able to get a job again as a software engineer before I had been too many years in this situation and was still mostly presentable.
I don’t take a single day of my present life for granted, I know how little separates me from those with a hand out on the street. We’re all a few spells of bad luck away from it.
The point being that a bunch of psychology undergrads taking surveys because it's required of them is not necessarily a good way to draw conclusions about the species.
How is this not stress?
Another piece aimed at guilt manipulation and scare mongering for the middle class. Don't lose your job, it will hurt your entire intelligence! Don't take risks, you'll be full flowers for algernon if everything doesn't go perfectly.
There's a likely reality here that the biological impact of intelligence is high and that the market selects enough for IQ that the whole measurement goes down as some people escape poverty. Which is close to what we want btw.
How can we take these studies seriously when there is such a taboo on asking uncomfortable questions?
> And here’s the kicker: “This cannot be explained by differences in time available, nutrition, or work effort. Nor can it be explained with stress.”
How about your own claim? You can start with yourself, which should be much easier since if you want to ask the person something you just have to do it in your head.
How about your own claim?
You can start with yourself, which should be much easier since if you want to ask the person something you just have to do it in your head.
If you were even an iota as critical about your own content-free mutterings you could make the world a better place. Seriously.
The focus and context of the study was poverty, not stress. One done on stress might provide some relative material, and be useful, but your assumption is a bit irresponsible.
So I think they are saying "mental preoccupation" more than "stress" per se is the cause of the decline. At a certain point, however, mental preoccupation is the same as stress so it may be a distinction without a difference.