Guest post by Zac Chase

New Jersey shoppers and Indian sugarcane farmers might have something to teach us about poverty and cognitive load. An article in the August issue of the magazine Science examined the possibilities of a causal effect between considerations of poverty and study participants' abilities to perform cognitively-demanding tasks.

The authors set out to examine the common belief that poverty reduces cognitive capacity and "suggest that this is because poverty-related concerns consume mental resources, leaving less for other tasks."

Being poor, in other words, results in worrying about being poor, and that leads to folks not having as much room to worry or think about other things.

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