Saturday, May 2, 2009

Living on Earth: This Is Your Brain on Poverty

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=08-P13-00009&segmentID=5

5 comments:

  1. Very interesting, and makes sense. But at the end they create a little proposal to help alleviate it, through classes aimed at the parents. They project rather positive results from such measures. My question is, does it actually work?

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  2. I wonder if memory problems could also be some sort of protective mechanism against the pain of neglect and stress. I know that memory decreases in some cases of depression, perhaps this is a similar neurological process as the phenomena described here?

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  3. I wonder if it is the same hormone that is initiated in fight-or-flight responses that contributes to the ongoing stress of those in the low-income bracket. I know that exposure to too many of a specific type of hormone does damage the hippocampus, but could this have to do with other factors outside of damage done by hormones.

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  4. Though this is a very compelling study, I agree with Emily in that there seems to be little solutions posed. Families living with lower incomes face numerous challenges, challenges that middle and upper class families typically never have to experience. This stress alters the home environment, as well as a sense of safety. Yes, this occurs, as the article depicts. But what can affectively be done to alter the cyclical nature of poverty?

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  5. A lot of what's here seems subjective... families in higher-stress situations (such as a situation of poverty in a culture of wealth-- I doubt that, say, Amish families who are "poor" experience most of the negative effects of poverty-within-our-culture) develop in ways that are maladaptive for our particular society. Yet many people who are not "poor" (quotation marks to note that the definition of poor is most certainly subjective) also develop maladaptively-- the middle classes in some sociogeographic areas, often it seems the extreme upper class-- leading me to wonder if there is a connection between what these groups are experiencing.

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