I was speaking about stress. The fact that chronic stress has negative impact on decision making, etc.
To your point, if stress effects the relatively well off, imagine what happens to those are struggling to get by.
To your point, if stress effects the relatively well off, imagine what happens to those are struggling to get by.
If you don't have food in the pantry, you're not worried about saving for retirement. And that's probably sensible.
Individuals can absolutely worry about more than one thing and different needs can change "ranks" daily depending on life circumstances.
Sure, we could say that well-off people stress is not as important and they just shouldn't stress about unimportant stuff. But stress is stress and people ability to stress out is relative, not absolute. Even today's poor people are much better off than average people from 200 or 2000 years ago. Yet average stress level seems to be getting higher and higher.
An important point is the occurrence of "Dominance Hierarchies" which has been persistent in animals/human since the dawn of time. In a small hamlet, it was 'easy' to become known as the best blacksmith, the fastest runner, the best storyteller. You physiology literally changes and you gain an increase in dopamine receptors.
With the rise of technology, we are exposed to Dominance Hierarchies of much grander scope. Kids (and adults) are evaluating themselves against Instagram models and NFL Stars. A 14 year old can win their local brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament and still feel inadequate.
But also, even today you can be good in your immediate social circle and in the past to be in environment of big competition.
On top of that, management jobs add stress of dealing with your subordinates. You're responsible for their mistakes as well as their wellbeing depends on you. One of the most stressful things in running small business is know that your employees' families depend on you.
Scum managers exist at all levels. Even if you at executive level, it's likely you'll have investors or owners above you. I suppose HN is aware how stressful dealing with VCs is.
I don't know, the thought that you're pushing a broom because of a laundry list of things (e.g., bad school system, unavailable parental support, etc.) you had no control over has to be demoralizing and stressful.
No one wakes up thinking, I want to be disadvantaged.
Certainly, you're not suggesting we need a study on whether poverty is stressful or not.
The arc of my original comment is: Some well say, "Well, poverty is a decision. Those in poverty need to make better decisions." Unfortunately, that's naive. It does not consider the fact that stress has a negative impact on the brain, on decision making.
You didn't ask us to imagine if "poverty is stressful"; you made a different claim entirely.