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Economic Report - How Stress Affects Mental Bandwidth
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New research shows how a lack of money, food or even
can affect decision making and the ability to act. In the
, "Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much," Professors Sendhil Mullainathan
Eldar Shafir examine the mental stress of dealing with a lack
something necessary. Sendhil Mullainathan is an economist. He teaches at Harvard
in Massachusetts. Eldar Shafir teaches psychology at Princeton University in New
. Their research combined theories from economics and psychology to explain behaviors.
two borrowed a word from digital technology to describe how thinking
harmed by scarcity. They use the word, "bandwidth" to describe the
of the mind to remember and plan. They say mental bandwidth
when people have too little. When mental energy is divided between
and planning, planning is affected. One experiment in India tested the
of farmers before and after the yearly harvest. Farmers scored higher
they had sold their crops. Worry over the lack of money
the harvest had temporarily decreased their intelligence. The two men experienced
own decreased bandwidth. They found that a lack of enough time
their performance in all parts of their lives. Sendil Mullainathan was
for a MacArthur Genius Award, yet he says he found himself
meetings, not answering e-mails and forgetting to call his mother. Eldar
says the research is meaningful for public policy. He says the
of being poor or hungry or even too busy restricts the
to think and act to make things better. For VOA Learning
, I'm Alex Villarreal.
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