If you were asked this question, I’m sure your answer would be a resolute, ”No! Of course I don’t look down on poor people, they deserve equal rights, just like the rest of us!” Hey, don’t get me wrong, I would answer the same. I’m sure all of us know that people living in poverty deserve our respect. But what about on a subconscious level? Do we carry any implicit (if unintentional) biases against the poor?
According to brain scans taken at Princeton University in 2006 by neuroscientists Lasana Harris and Susan Fiske, looking at photographs of people belonging to different social groups elicits varying responses among people. When volunteers were looking at pictures of rich people, the area of the brain that is activated when we see another person (the medial prefrontal cortex) was activated. However, when people were shown pictures of homeless people, their medial prefrontal cortex failed to activate, meaning that the homeless person was not registered as a human being. Of course, we could tell ourselves otherwise, but the fact that our unconscious gut instinct is a dehumanising reaction shows that, as much as we may hate to admit it, people may carry unconscious biases towards the poor.
Research also shows that we may have judgemental attitudes or misconceptions towards people living in poverty. According to a survey conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in the UK, 69% of participants (who placed themselves in the ‘middle’ of the income spectrum) had the belief that there is “enough opportunity for virtually everyone to get on in life if they really want to. It comes down to the individual and how much you are motivated”, implying that they may have the subconscious belief that people living in poverty do not work as hard as those that can support themselves financially. This, of course, is another example of negative stereotypes associated with the poor. In reality, poverty is not so simple – one person’s socioeconomic status could be affected by many things, for example, intergenerational poverty, which in turn causes a vicious cycle that people living in poverty could be the victims of (this will be covered in a later article!). It’s often not just about ‘working hard’.
Did those 69% of people seriously not know any of this? …Actually, that might be going a little bit too harsh on them. In the same survey, most participants were supportive of targeted interventions to improve the quality of life of the poor, even if there would be some cost to the rest of the population. Despite their judgemental attitude, they still believed that society should extend help to people living in poverty.
So, what does this all mean? As mentioned in the beginning, nobody wishes for people living in poverty to have worse lives than everyone else. We all know that this inequality is unfair. However, even if it’s hard for us to admit, we (including myself!) may have subconscious biases or misconceptions against the disadvantaged due to societal values, and the first step to clearing these potential misconceptions is to recognize and admit them. This article is only the first in a series of articles about poverty – read on to learn more about this complex social issue, and hopefully, all of us would be able to increase our aweareness (har har, I should stop making this joke), so that we can get rid of our subconscious biases towards those living in poverty.
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