The Influence Mechanism Of Poverty On Intertemporal Decision Making

Poverty not only affects individuals’ self-control,but also leads to short-sighted behavior,which makes individuals fall into the poverty trap.In order to understand the influence mechanism of poor people on intertemporal decision making,this study introduced self-control variables and used two experiments to explore.In study 1,randomly selected relatively poor and non-poor rural population as subjects,the self-control of the two groups was investigated by questionnaire,and a behavioral experiment was conducted on intertemporal decision-making.In study 2,randomly selected poor and non-poor college students as subjects,an experimental task combining Go/NoGo task and intertemporal decision making task was used to explore the neurophysiological characteristics of the intertemporal decision making mechanism of the two groups by using event-related potential(ERP)technique.The results of Experiment 1 showed that there was no significant difference between the rural relative poor population and the non-poor population in the inhibition dimension and impulsivity dimension of the self-control scale.There were no significant difference in the discount rate k on the intertemporal choice titration task between the two groups and there was no significant difference between the two groups in the probability of choosing the current option under the conditions of today/two weeks or today/one month in the intertemporal choice task.Self-control had no significant mediating effect between group and intertemporal decision making.In the poor group,the probability of choosing the current option under the condition of today/two weeks was positively correlated with impulsivity,but no significant in other conditions.There was no significant correlation between intertemporal choice and self-control in the non-poverty group.The behavioral data of Experiment 2 showed that there was no significant difference in dimension of self-control scale between poor and non poor college students;there was no significant difference in the discount rate k on the intertemporal choice titration task and the probability of choosing the current option under the condition of Go or NoGo in the intertemporal choice task between the two groups.Self-control had no significant mediating effect.There was no significant correlation between self-control and intertemporal choice in the two groups.The ERP data of Experiment 2 showed that the main effect of task type was significant on the N2 component of the prefrontal midline electrode(FZ,FCZ,CZ electrode),with the amplitude of NoGo-N2 was significantly lager than that of Go-N2.The poor group elicited significant lower NoGo-N2 mean amplitude than non-poor group.The poor group elicited significant larger NoGo-P2 mean amplitude than non-poor group under the NoGo-now condition.Based on the results of the study,the following conclusions could be concluded:Firstly,There is no significant difference between poor individuals and non-poor individuals in intertemporal decision-making,indicating that poverty does not affect individuals’ intertemporal decision-making;Secondly,the amplitude of Nogo-N2 of the poor individuals was significantly lower than that of non-poor individuals,indicating that the response inhibition ability of the poor individuals was weakened at the neurophysiological level;Thirdly,the amplitude of NoGo-P2 of the poor individuals was significantly larger than that of non-poor individuals under the NoGo-now condition,indicating that the poor individuals allocated more attention resources when choosing the current option at the neurophysiological level.