2020年我国实现全面脱贫,但相对贫困还是一个长期存在的问题。同绝对贫困一样,相对贫困不仅仅是物质上的不足,同时会影响个体的生理和心理,影响个体的认知、情感乃至决策。而决策,特别是跨期决策,会进一步影响个体的未来发展,不利于个体摆脱贫困。以往研究认为贫困的个体更加短视,在跨期决策中更倾向于即时满足。而最近的研究却发现情况并不总是如此,只有在环境威胁的情况下,贫困个体才更有可能选择即时满足,即贫困和当前环境威胁共同影响个体的跨期决策。进一步研究发现环境威胁可能通过影响个体的生理(皮质醇)和心理(控制感、自我评价)进而影响跨期决策。未来研究可以进一步探索其它可能的机制以及干预方案。
China has already gotten rid of poverty in an all-around way by 2020, but relative poverty is still a long-standing problem. Like absolute poverty, relative poverty not only means material deficiency, but also affects individual’s physiology and psychology, like cognition, emotion and decision-making. And the inter-temporal decision-making, will further affect the future development of individuals, which is not conducive to the individual’s escape from poverty. Previous studies have suggested that poor individuals are more short-sighted and more inclined to instant gratification in intertemporal decision-making. However, recent studies have found that this is not always so. Only in the case of environmental threats, poor people are more likely to choose instant gratification. It means poverty and current environmental threats jointly affect individual intertemporal decision-making. In recent years studies have found that environmental threats may affect the individual’s physiology (cortisol) and psychology (sense of control, self-evaluation) and then influence intertemporal decision-making. Future research can explore other possible mechanisms and intervention options.
贫困,跨期决策,威胁感知,环境威胁, Poverty Intertemporal Decision Making Threat Perception Environmental Threat摘要
China has already gotten rid of poverty in an all-around way by 2020, but relative poverty is still a long-standing problem. Like absolute poverty, relative poverty not only means material deficiency, but also affects individual’s physiology and psychology, like cognition, emotion and decision-making. And the inter-temporal decision-making, will further affect the future development of individuals, which is not conducive to the individual’s escape from poverty. Previous studies have suggested that poor individuals are more short-sighted and more inclined to instant gratification in intertemporal decision-making. However, recent studies have found that this is not always so. Only in the case of environmental threats, poor people are more likely to choose instant gratification. It means poverty and current environmental threats jointly affect individual intertemporal decision-making. In recent years studies have found that environmental threats may affect the individual’s physiology (cortisol) and psychology (sense of control, self-evaluation) and then influence intertemporal decision-making. Future research can explore other possible mechanisms and intervention options.
同绝对贫困一样,相对贫困不仅仅是物质上的不足,同时会影响个体的生理和心理,影响个体的认知、情感乃至决策。而决策,特别是跨期决策,会进一步影响个体的未来发展。跨期决策是指个体对发生在不同时间点的收益或损失进行权衡,进而作出各种判断和选择(Frederick et al., 2002)。跨期决策可以延伸到生活的各方面决策,小到生活中的一些小决定(如选择投资教育等待更久更大的回报,还是把钱花在当下获得即时更小的快乐),大到整个人生的进程和计划(如选择早早结婚生子,还是投资自己推迟生育年龄)。
研究发现贫困和跨期决策存在一定的相关性,即贫困环境中长大的个体倾向于选择即时满足,时间折扣率更高。发表在SCIENCE上的研究表明,贫困经历可能会导致个体倾向于选择当前收入,而不是去追求更高的未来收入(Fehr & Haushofer, 2014)。跨文化研究也发现,贫困经历会导致个体更倾向即时满足(Griskevicius et al., 2011)。贫困会对个体不同维度(财务、健康、教育等)的跨期决策产生影响(Griskevicius et al., 2013; Mittal & Griskevicius, 2016; Whelan & Hingston, 2018)。在金钱方面,贫困者更可能借高利贷(Bhutta et al., 2016),哪怕这可能导致其背负巨额债务无法翻身。在生活方式方面,贫困者更可能吸烟(Denney et al., 2010)和摄入高热量食物(Bratanova et al., 2016),这导致其健康状况往往更差。在消费领域,贫困者倾向于购买一系列奢侈品和炫耀性商品(Wang et al., 2020),而这些消费可能超出部分个体的经济范围,导致其通过贷款来购买奢侈品,这进一步导致个体陷入贫困。
尽管很多研究者认为贫困和跨期决策存在相关,但随着研究深入,贫困和跨期决策的不一致和矛盾性开始出现。即在个别情况下,贫困者会和富裕个体一样选择延迟满足。对此,研究者们提出了环境威胁这一概念。环境威胁时指当前环境中很大程度上不可控和有威胁的事件(Borkman et al., 1993; Schulte et al., 2014)。Schulte等人(2014)认为环境威胁可能源于经济不确定性(如股市波动、失业)、社会不确定性(如国家动荡战乱)、死亡率不确定性(如恐怖主义、新疾病流行等)或环境中任何对未来福祉构成威胁的事件。而个体感知到的这种环境威胁称为威胁感知。
一系列研究验证了贫困和环境威胁对个体跨期决策的影响。具体来说,当处于低威胁环境时,贫困对长期决策的影响很小;而当前环境为高威胁时,贫困个体会更倾向于即时满足(Mittal et al., 2020)。相关研究发现,生活在高外在死亡率环境的人比那些生活在低外在死亡率环境下的人更早生育(Störmer & Lummaa, 2014)。与富裕国家相比,发展中国家的民众普遍面临更多的威胁,因此更倾向于储蓄更少的退休金、摄入更少的健康食物,也更少的进行有规律的体育锻炼(Fehr, 2002)。在健康领域,我国不同社会阶层之间的健康差距也越来越明显,低社会阶层的个体更多地从事危害健康的行为,如吸烟和久坐不运动(胡小勇等,2019)。这些研究似乎表明威胁环境下个体会更加短视,但不能充分证明环境威胁对不同经济状况个体的影响。对此,研究者进一步通过实验室操纵来验证其观点。
实验室研究发现,操纵感知死亡率风险,会增加贫困个体的延迟折扣,但对富裕个体没有影响(Griskevicius et al., 2011)。当给被试呈现死亡线索时,贫困的个体更加倾向于选择立即小奖赏;而富有的个体更加倾向于选择未来大奖赏(Griskevicius et al., 2011)。环境威胁还会影响个体健康领域的跨期决策(Pepper & Nettle, 2014),如Lawlor等人(2003)研究了不同社会阶层(1948~1999年)吸烟率的趋势,发现当个体得知吸烟有害健康时,社会经济地位高的个体吸烟率显著下降,而社会阶层低的个体则没有。
不同领域的研究也揭示了贫困和当前环境的共同影响。动物领域研究发现,当环境无威胁时,早期恶劣环境和良性环境长大的大鼠在学习和觅食任务表现上无差异,然而,当处于威胁环境时(如在实验室中诱发紧张性刺激),大鼠的表现会随着其生活环境的变化而变化(Chaby et al., 2015)。心理领域研究发现,那些在恶劣和不可预测的环境中长大的人,在接受电流的实验治疗(威胁线索)时,有可能表现得更冲动;而在没有接受电流刺激的对照组,不同环境中长大的个体表现相似(Pepper & Nettle, 2017)。消费领域研究发现,经济衰退的消息会促进贫困家庭中长大的个体采用快策略,而不影响富有环境长大个体的决策(Mittal & Griskevicius, 2016)。
其次,可以扩展环境威胁对贫困个体其它领域的影响,如注意力或者其它类型的决策。就注意力而言,威胁领域的相关研究发现,个体在面临威胁时会出现注意偏向(Goodwin et al., 2017)。那么当贫困个体感知到威胁时,其注意力是如何变化?不同阶层个体面临环境威胁时是否存在差异?其机制是否同引起跨期决策的机制相似?未来可以进一步探讨环境威胁对贫困个体不同方面的影响,以更好地了解和帮助贫困个体。
杨 静. 穷人更短视?——威胁感知的作用及其机制The Poor Are More Short-Sighted?—The Role and Mechanism of Threat Perception[J]. 心理学进展, 2021, 11(11): 2497-2504. https://doi.org/10.12677/AP.2021.1111285
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