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فقر احمق میکن�
یک مدیر با ده‌ه� پروژۀ عقب افتاده، یک کارگر ساده با کوهی از بدهی و یک خانم خانه‌دا� که درگیر رژیم گرفتن است چه شباهتی با هم دارند؟
این افراد همه دچار کمیابی اند. یکی زمان کافی ندارد، یکی بی‌پو� است و دیگری نیز کالری‌های� را محدود کرده. کمیابی به شکلی اعجاب آور ذهن همه را تحت تاثیر قرار میده�. مولاینیتن و شفیر، متکی به آخرین یافته‌ها� علوم رفتاری و اقتصاد، تبیین می‌کنن� که چطور ابعاد مختلف زندگی ما تحت تأثیر ذهنیت کمیابی است؛
همچنین آن‌ه� توضیح می‌دهن� که چطور سازمان‌ه� و تک‌ت� افراد می‌توانن� کمیابی را مهار کنند تا به موفقیت و رضایت بیشتری دست یابند.
همان طور که تِیلر برندۀ نوبل اقتصاد ۲۰۱۷ می‌گوید� این کتاب از نظر علمی بی‌بدی� و از نظر روایی بسیار خواندنی و سرگرم‌کنند� است.
این افراد همه دچار کمیابی اند. یکی زمان کافی ندارد، یکی بی‌پو� است و دیگری نیز کالری‌های� را محدود کرده. کمیابی به شکلی اعجاب آور ذهن همه را تحت تاثیر قرار میده�. مولاینیتن و شفیر، متکی به آخرین یافته‌ها� علوم رفتاری و اقتصاد، تبیین می‌کنن� که چطور ابعاد مختلف زندگی ما تحت تأثیر ذهنیت کمیابی است؛
همچنین آن‌ه� توضیح می‌دهن� که چطور سازمان‌ه� و تک‌ت� افراد می‌توانن� کمیابی را مهار کنند تا به موفقیت و رضایت بیشتری دست یابند.
همان طور که تِیلر برندۀ نوبل اقتصاد ۲۰۱۷ می‌گوید� این کتاب از نظر علمی بی‌بدی� و از نظر روایی بسیار خواندنی و سرگرم‌کنند� است.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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18.6k people want to read
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March 17, 2022
Addendum, March 2022: An excellent short version of this book is at
at the Harvard Alumni magazine. Thanks to Jeff for recommending it.
� � � � � � � � � � � �
Are the poor to blame for their poverty? For their flawed choices?
Are the overweight, struggling with a diet? What about those who complain of being too busy? What about the lonely?
What these have in common is scarcity , something that economists have always studied. But until fairly recently, the idea of studying cognition, or feelings, from an economic perspective would have been absurd, or even heretical. The field of behavioral economics and neuroeconomics has changed that, and took off like a rocket when Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
What Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir focus on is how the human mind functions when it perceives scarcity � there are predictable cognitive changes that most of would describe as seriously dysfunctional.
The term is “scarcity trap�, and the basic idea is that our brains so tightly focus on what is so desperately lacking that thinking about anything else becomes tremendously difficult. (Like several other cognitive problems, this was undoubtedly evolutionarily adaptive for our paleolithic ancestors � so under some circumstances, it probably remains beneficial, but nevertheless outside of our control.)
The result is revelatory � there are profound implications for how our governments� poverty programs should function, for what diets are likely to work, or even how overly busy parents of newborn (or sick, etc.) children react.
This is an important book, perhaps even a critical book. We all have seen discussions of inequality gain attention across the political spectrum, and throughout the world. brought it to a head in the blogosphere, but we’d been watching the Occupy and 99% movement for some time.
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much tells us that in many ways, the situation is worse than we thought. Not only are we tolerating economic and social policies that worsen the situation of more and more people with each passing year, it seems that being poor creates cognitive problems that make the burden even tougher to overcome.
Scarcity is the curse. The subconscious perception of scarcity changes how we think in ways that are detrimental to escaping whatever is causing scarcity in the first place.
This probably wasn’t always so. We can imagine, once upon a time, a world that was so much less complicated that the mechanisms described here didn’t backfire, and instead helped those individuals get back on their feet.
(Note that poverty, while it is the form of scarcity that deserves the most attention, is definitely not the only one that is addressed in the book. More on that below.)
That scarcity is the cause of the problem and not the result requires a significant conceptual reframing.
Let’s go through the paradigm they lay out:
The authors start out exploring focus under conditions of scarcity. If two people are told to identify words flashing very, very quickly before them on a screen, it turns out that hunger will increase the effectiveness of recognition of words associated with food, without decreasing effectiveness of other words. This focus is a good thing, right? There are many, many examples where that is precisely what we want.
What is happening is that scarcity causes adjustments to be made by unconscious parts of the brain, and the attention of our conscious brain is much more easily “cٳܰ� by stimuli that respond to that scarcity. We can’t control it, we can’t avoid it � that point is made time and again by the evidence presented here.
The word they use to describe this is tunneling . When scarcity causes us to focus, we descend into a cognitive tunnel, and aspects of the world that don’t deal with that all-important need become increasingly invisible to us. We can even become completely oblivious. Even when voluntarily focusing, this is evident. We’ve all been so deeply engrossed in something (reading, playing a video game, watching a tense movie) that we are startled by someone telling us they’d been trying to get our attention for some time. Those unperceived stimuli have been inhibited from arriving in our awareness. Other objectives we might have otherwise thought important can be eliminated from our consideration by goal inhibition . A salient example the authors give is the neglect of a firefighter to fasten their seatbelt in the urgent rush from the station to a burning building (although the scarcity here is of time, not money).
But if it is scarcity that is causing the tunneling, we can’t escape it easily, and fall into it more readily even when we do escape. What tunneling reflects is a lack of bandwidth. The term is annoyingly contemporary, but quite apropos, because (like the cyber term) it encompasses two related but different resources. Tunneling taxes both our cognitive capacity (i.e., “intelligence�) as well as our executive control (i.e., “discipline�).
Another way of perceiving this tunneling is very revealing. A common way of prioritizing a to-do list is to rank each item by both urgency and importance. Something that is urgent, but not important, might be ranked higher than something that is important, but not urgent, correct? (2021 update: I’ve recently learned this is often known as the ).
Tunneling forces us to focus intensely on this urgent need, even if a fully reasoning mind would tells us to act on something else as more critical. This seems counterintuitive, but the book provides plenty of supporting evidence. What this means is that what is merely important, but not urgent, is consistently suppressed.
For example, replacing seriously worn tires on the car is important, of course, but at no point is it necessarily urgent � until it is too late. Dental care, same thing. Budgeting for long-term but completely predictable expenditure is important, but to someone tunneling through life, with two jobs with variable hours, child care troubles, etc. � they will very often be surprised to discover that yet another important has crept up to their dismay. I’m pretty certain you’d realize you’ve fallen into this trip many times; hopefully not catastrophically.
Even when they emerge from that cognitive tunnel, their troubles won’t be over, of course. This is where juggling comes in: suddenly all those other important things are visible, but there isn’t enough time or energy (or slack ) to consider them, much less money in the bank account. The stress is likely to kick them straight back into a scarcity mindset, one where the “bandwidth tax� imposed by scarcity affects their intelligence and discipline.
Just to remind us that all of these problems aren’t just relegated to the poor, who we might privately suspect are dysfunctional anyway, the authors provide several counterexamples.
By way of an empirical analysis, they quiz strangers in a mall. After getting some socioeconomic data, the intelligence of the participants is tested. Then they are asked a key question, and then their intelligence is tested some more. The key question is one designed to selectively trigger the scarcity-capture phenomena. Half of the subjects are asked how they would deal with a sudden emergency (car repairs) that cost about $150; for the other half, the figure is bumped up to $1500. For those at the high end of the economic scale, there was no change in the intelligence testing. But for those downscale, the later questions showed a significant cognitive deficit, as much as fourteen IQ points, which at least temporarily would make them “borderline deficient�.
Another empirical looked at how air traffic controllers interact with their families. On days when the air traffic load was low, the controllers had a cognitively easy day, and went home and appeared to engage with their children in a stereotypically upper- or middle-class manner. On days when the job was especially tough, their interactions with their family were troubled and reminiscent of a stereotypical lower-class family.
The effect of scarcity is seen across cultures and in diverse domains. Quite a few of the studies cited take place among struggling farmers or impoverished street vendors in India. Others involve struggles with diets (a “scarcity� of permissible calories, in effect) or loneliness (a “scarcity� of social interaction).
In fact, the book is chock full of interesting examples. Some are illustrative just-so stories or telling anecdotes, but the forty pages of endnotes are tied to the large volume of empirical evidence. This weight of substantiation is necessary because the message is counter-paradigmatic. While we often remind ourselves not to blame the victim in some contexts, that is still pervasive in many domains. Even among those on the political left, policies often assume that the poor don’t understand something, when the theory of scarcity-induced cognitive deficits would tell us instead that they don’t have the money/time/energy to act on what they often quite well know. The numerous examples of how busyness (or dietary failures) among the not-impoverished leads to the same kind of flawed behavior is a salutary reminder that this isn’t a phenomena of poverty, but part of human cognition.
Unfortunately, the mass of examples gets in the way of clarity. There might be too much narrative; those that are unfamiliar with the state of cognitive research might be uneasy enough with the evolving argument, and dismiss the conclusions, sticking with their preexisting opinions. (Actually, it is worse: most people whose preexisting opinions lean in the other direction are probably wary enough of cognitive research that they won’t even open this book.)
Even if this book was only about poverty, the implications really are staggering. As the authors say, “one prevailing view explains the strong correlation between poverty and failure [to make good choices in life, etc.] by saying that failure causes poverty. Our data suggest causality runs at least as strongly in the other direction: that poverty � the scarcity mindset � causes failure.� This book tells us that we should be reexamining all of our policies and social adjustment mechanisms from a different angle, not just because they would be more effective, but also because of the fundamental unfairness of creating obstacles that perversely can make peoples� situation worse.
But this is an academic book. There is no sense of outrage to incite change through passion. It doesn’t make the dire predictions of Piketty, stirring controversy and wider discussion. Many of those reading this will respond: “Oh, yeah. Duh!�
This is a five-star book because awareness of this theory and its profound social and political implications needs to be elevated. Please read it even as a self-help book in your own life (I rearranged my daily habits to make sure this review got written � something that otherwise I might have considered important, but not quite urgent). But the goal, really, is to think about it enough that it changes one’s perspective of the struggle of many of our fellow humans.
� � � � � � � � � � � �
2016 update: Good tie-in to the current political discussion about how economic injustice leads to social injustice: . Personally, I think the best argument for a UBI instead of a higher Minimum Wage is that the technological unemployment of the coming decades is going to make it harder and harder for many people to be employed at all, and a high Minimum Wage isn’t much of a social safety net for the unemployed. I haven’t seen a plausible plan for a UBI yet, but it is probably going to be needed for social stability.
� � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � � � � � � � � � �
Excellent reviews and articles from around the web:
� From the Economist, .
•From the New York Review of Books, .
•From the Guardian, .
•From Pacific Standard, .
•From the author Sendhil Mullainathan, in the New York Times, .
�
� � � � � � � � � � � �
Are the poor to blame for their poverty? For their flawed choices?
Are the overweight, struggling with a diet? What about those who complain of being too busy? What about the lonely?
What these have in common is scarcity , something that economists have always studied. But until fairly recently, the idea of studying cognition, or feelings, from an economic perspective would have been absurd, or even heretical. The field of behavioral economics and neuroeconomics has changed that, and took off like a rocket when Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
What Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir focus on is how the human mind functions when it perceives scarcity � there are predictable cognitive changes that most of would describe as seriously dysfunctional.
The term is “scarcity trap�, and the basic idea is that our brains so tightly focus on what is so desperately lacking that thinking about anything else becomes tremendously difficult. (Like several other cognitive problems, this was undoubtedly evolutionarily adaptive for our paleolithic ancestors � so under some circumstances, it probably remains beneficial, but nevertheless outside of our control.)
The result is revelatory � there are profound implications for how our governments� poverty programs should function, for what diets are likely to work, or even how overly busy parents of newborn (or sick, etc.) children react.
This is an important book, perhaps even a critical book. We all have seen discussions of inequality gain attention across the political spectrum, and throughout the world. brought it to a head in the blogosphere, but we’d been watching the Occupy and 99% movement for some time.
Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much tells us that in many ways, the situation is worse than we thought. Not only are we tolerating economic and social policies that worsen the situation of more and more people with each passing year, it seems that being poor creates cognitive problems that make the burden even tougher to overcome.
Scarcity is the curse. The subconscious perception of scarcity changes how we think in ways that are detrimental to escaping whatever is causing scarcity in the first place.
This probably wasn’t always so. We can imagine, once upon a time, a world that was so much less complicated that the mechanisms described here didn’t backfire, and instead helped those individuals get back on their feet.
(Note that poverty, while it is the form of scarcity that deserves the most attention, is definitely not the only one that is addressed in the book. More on that below.)
That scarcity is the cause of the problem and not the result requires a significant conceptual reframing.
Let’s go through the paradigm they lay out:
The authors start out exploring focus under conditions of scarcity. If two people are told to identify words flashing very, very quickly before them on a screen, it turns out that hunger will increase the effectiveness of recognition of words associated with food, without decreasing effectiveness of other words. This focus is a good thing, right? There are many, many examples where that is precisely what we want.
What is happening is that scarcity causes adjustments to be made by unconscious parts of the brain, and the attention of our conscious brain is much more easily “cٳܰ� by stimuli that respond to that scarcity. We can’t control it, we can’t avoid it � that point is made time and again by the evidence presented here.
The word they use to describe this is tunneling . When scarcity causes us to focus, we descend into a cognitive tunnel, and aspects of the world that don’t deal with that all-important need become increasingly invisible to us. We can even become completely oblivious. Even when voluntarily focusing, this is evident. We’ve all been so deeply engrossed in something (reading, playing a video game, watching a tense movie) that we are startled by someone telling us they’d been trying to get our attention for some time. Those unperceived stimuli have been inhibited from arriving in our awareness. Other objectives we might have otherwise thought important can be eliminated from our consideration by goal inhibition . A salient example the authors give is the neglect of a firefighter to fasten their seatbelt in the urgent rush from the station to a burning building (although the scarcity here is of time, not money).
But if it is scarcity that is causing the tunneling, we can’t escape it easily, and fall into it more readily even when we do escape. What tunneling reflects is a lack of bandwidth. The term is annoyingly contemporary, but quite apropos, because (like the cyber term) it encompasses two related but different resources. Tunneling taxes both our cognitive capacity (i.e., “intelligence�) as well as our executive control (i.e., “discipline�).
Another way of perceiving this tunneling is very revealing. A common way of prioritizing a to-do list is to rank each item by both urgency and importance. Something that is urgent, but not important, might be ranked higher than something that is important, but not urgent, correct? (2021 update: I’ve recently learned this is often known as the ).
Tunneling forces us to focus intensely on this urgent need, even if a fully reasoning mind would tells us to act on something else as more critical. This seems counterintuitive, but the book provides plenty of supporting evidence. What this means is that what is merely important, but not urgent, is consistently suppressed.
For example, replacing seriously worn tires on the car is important, of course, but at no point is it necessarily urgent � until it is too late. Dental care, same thing. Budgeting for long-term but completely predictable expenditure is important, but to someone tunneling through life, with two jobs with variable hours, child care troubles, etc. � they will very often be surprised to discover that yet another important has crept up to their dismay. I’m pretty certain you’d realize you’ve fallen into this trip many times; hopefully not catastrophically.
Even when they emerge from that cognitive tunnel, their troubles won’t be over, of course. This is where juggling comes in: suddenly all those other important things are visible, but there isn’t enough time or energy (or slack ) to consider them, much less money in the bank account. The stress is likely to kick them straight back into a scarcity mindset, one where the “bandwidth tax� imposed by scarcity affects their intelligence and discipline.
Just to remind us that all of these problems aren’t just relegated to the poor, who we might privately suspect are dysfunctional anyway, the authors provide several counterexamples.
By way of an empirical analysis, they quiz strangers in a mall. After getting some socioeconomic data, the intelligence of the participants is tested. Then they are asked a key question, and then their intelligence is tested some more. The key question is one designed to selectively trigger the scarcity-capture phenomena. Half of the subjects are asked how they would deal with a sudden emergency (car repairs) that cost about $150; for the other half, the figure is bumped up to $1500. For those at the high end of the economic scale, there was no change in the intelligence testing. But for those downscale, the later questions showed a significant cognitive deficit, as much as fourteen IQ points, which at least temporarily would make them “borderline deficient�.
Another empirical looked at how air traffic controllers interact with their families. On days when the air traffic load was low, the controllers had a cognitively easy day, and went home and appeared to engage with their children in a stereotypically upper- or middle-class manner. On days when the job was especially tough, their interactions with their family were troubled and reminiscent of a stereotypical lower-class family.
The effect of scarcity is seen across cultures and in diverse domains. Quite a few of the studies cited take place among struggling farmers or impoverished street vendors in India. Others involve struggles with diets (a “scarcity� of permissible calories, in effect) or loneliness (a “scarcity� of social interaction).
In fact, the book is chock full of interesting examples. Some are illustrative just-so stories or telling anecdotes, but the forty pages of endnotes are tied to the large volume of empirical evidence. This weight of substantiation is necessary because the message is counter-paradigmatic. While we often remind ourselves not to blame the victim in some contexts, that is still pervasive in many domains. Even among those on the political left, policies often assume that the poor don’t understand something, when the theory of scarcity-induced cognitive deficits would tell us instead that they don’t have the money/time/energy to act on what they often quite well know. The numerous examples of how busyness (or dietary failures) among the not-impoverished leads to the same kind of flawed behavior is a salutary reminder that this isn’t a phenomena of poverty, but part of human cognition.
Unfortunately, the mass of examples gets in the way of clarity. There might be too much narrative; those that are unfamiliar with the state of cognitive research might be uneasy enough with the evolving argument, and dismiss the conclusions, sticking with their preexisting opinions. (Actually, it is worse: most people whose preexisting opinions lean in the other direction are probably wary enough of cognitive research that they won’t even open this book.)
Even if this book was only about poverty, the implications really are staggering. As the authors say, “one prevailing view explains the strong correlation between poverty and failure [to make good choices in life, etc.] by saying that failure causes poverty. Our data suggest causality runs at least as strongly in the other direction: that poverty � the scarcity mindset � causes failure.� This book tells us that we should be reexamining all of our policies and social adjustment mechanisms from a different angle, not just because they would be more effective, but also because of the fundamental unfairness of creating obstacles that perversely can make peoples� situation worse.
But this is an academic book. There is no sense of outrage to incite change through passion. It doesn’t make the dire predictions of Piketty, stirring controversy and wider discussion. Many of those reading this will respond: “Oh, yeah. Duh!�
This is a five-star book because awareness of this theory and its profound social and political implications needs to be elevated. Please read it even as a self-help book in your own life (I rearranged my daily habits to make sure this review got written � something that otherwise I might have considered important, but not quite urgent). But the goal, really, is to think about it enough that it changes one’s perspective of the struggle of many of our fellow humans.
� � � � � � � � � � � �
2016 update: Good tie-in to the current political discussion about how economic injustice leads to social injustice: . Personally, I think the best argument for a UBI instead of a higher Minimum Wage is that the technological unemployment of the coming decades is going to make it harder and harder for many people to be employed at all, and a high Minimum Wage isn’t much of a social safety net for the unemployed. I haven’t seen a plausible plan for a UBI yet, but it is probably going to be needed for social stability.
� � � � � � � � � � � �
� � � � � � � � � � � �
Excellent reviews and articles from around the web:
� From the Economist, .
•From the New York Review of Books, .
•From the Guardian, .
•From Pacific Standard, .
•From the author Sendhil Mullainathan, in the New York Times, .
�
June 4, 2022
فوق العاده بود^_^ اینقدر خوب بود که رفتم سرچ زدم کجاها اقتصاد رفتاری تدریس میشه که من برم :دی
بچه ها خودم میدونم خیلی جوگیرم :)))
این مبحث اقتصاد رفتاری عجب مبحث خفنیه!!! پشمام
آیا از داشتن اضافه وزن رنج میبرید؟
آیا از نداشتن پول رنج میبرید؟
آیا از نداشتن وقت رنج میبرید؟
آیا از سینگل به گور بودن رنج میبرید؟
کلا اگه در هرحال رنجید اینو بخونید :))))
*
دوستان عزیز این کتاب برای جامعه ایران نوشته نشده چون فک کنم نویسنده اگه میخواست مطابق جامعه ایران کتابو بنویسه ما کتابی نداشتیم! وسطاش مغزش تسمه پاره میکرد میافتاد میمرد! واسه همین خودتونو یه غربی تصور کنید که لم داده و گیلاس شرابش دستشه و داره این کتابو میخونه *_^
بچه ها خودم میدونم خیلی جوگیرم :)))
این مبحث اقتصاد رفتاری عجب مبحث خفنیه!!! پشمام
آیا از داشتن اضافه وزن رنج میبرید؟
آیا از نداشتن پول رنج میبرید؟
آیا از نداشتن وقت رنج میبرید؟
آیا از سینگل به گور بودن رنج میبرید؟
کلا اگه در هرحال رنجید اینو بخونید :))))
*
دوستان عزیز این کتاب برای جامعه ایران نوشته نشده چون فک کنم نویسنده اگه میخواست مطابق جامعه ایران کتابو بنویسه ما کتابی نداشتیم! وسطاش مغزش تسمه پاره میکرد میافتاد میمرد! واسه همین خودتونو یه غربی تصور کنید که لم داده و گیلاس شرابش دستشه و داره این کتابو میخونه *_^
September 14, 2013
I once heard Sendhil Mullainathan speak at an event in DC, and he was smart and engaging. He's a MacArthur Foundation genius, a Harvard economist, and a TED speaker. He has a wry sense of humor and tells anecdotes from his personal life to make his economics work come alive. And all of that is in this book, written with his long-time collaborator, Eldar Shafir, who's a Princeton psychologist.
Still this book was a bit of a disappointment, possibly because I expected so much. A lot of the conclusions are, well, obvious. The book's entire thesis can be summarized as: "People make bad decisions when they are resource-constrained, whether the resources in question are money, time, food, or something else." Some of it recaps what has been said before about hyperbolic discounting in economics.
The book's chapters go like this...
Intro - definition of "scarcity" and overview of its consequences
Chap. 1 - The good: scarcity can cause focus. The bad: focus can mean inattention to other things.
Chap. 2 - Scarcity causes an internal disruption that makes it harder to make good decisions.
Chap. 3 - Slack (the opposite of scarcity) allows better choices and reduces the bad consequences of failiure.
Chap. 4 - Poor people are sometimes more realistic about estimating costs, because they have to be.
Chap. 5 - Borrowing when you're short of cash leads to a descending spiral of debt.
Chap. 6 & 7 - Poverty is a vicious circle of scarcity leading to bad decisions leading to scarcity...
Chap. 8 - Poverty can be alleviated by creating slack, such as extra cash or day care to create more time.
Chap. 9 - Efficient use of resources and division of labor helps organizations become more efficient.
Chap. 10 - Efficient use of self-control helps with life issues.
On the positive side, the book contains some interesting stories, and a rich set of endnotes to track down the many studies the authors cite. On the negative side, the book keeps talking about how mainstream economics is traditionally (for example, that people are "rational" decision makers), just so the authors can tear down the mainstream view. Economists come across as completely clueless, which maybe they are. Is it really surprising that when you're poor, hungry, and stressed, that you would make less than rational decisions?
Mullainathan and Shafir seem aware of this problem with the book. Chap. 2 contains some defensive passages about how bad decisions under scarcity are different from bad decisions due to stress. The explanation isn't compelling, and unlike most of their other claims, that passage doesn't have lots of studies to back it up.
The most interesting study in the book is one about street vendors in India who are in perpetual debt from a loan-sell-repay cycle (Chap. 6). The researchers give the vendors a cash grant to pay off their debts, which should have allowed them to start saving a little and eventually eliminate the need for borrowing altogether. One by one, though, the vendors fall back into debt. Any non-economist would see this as challenges of personality or habit. It's the same reason why couch potatos find it hard to get off the couch and exercise everyday. The authors, though, somehow turn this into a story of scarcity. How it was because there wasn't enough slack. Why don't they do an experiment where they give everyone a little extra cash to save? They don't, though, and I'd bet good money that with additional cash, the vendors would still have fallen back into debt eventually. What the vendors need is some training and hand-holding.
This study illustrates one of the biggest problems with the book. In order to make a case for the centrality of scarcity, the authors go too far. Not every bad decision is about scarcity. Sometimes, people are dumb, and sometimes there are dumb people. And sometimes, people are smart, and there are also smart people. At one point, the authors write, "all people, if they were poor, would have less effective bandwidth." Not sure about that. My grandmother managed seven kids and ran a shop, but she was dirt poor until her children grew up.
Still this book was a bit of a disappointment, possibly because I expected so much. A lot of the conclusions are, well, obvious. The book's entire thesis can be summarized as: "People make bad decisions when they are resource-constrained, whether the resources in question are money, time, food, or something else." Some of it recaps what has been said before about hyperbolic discounting in economics.
The book's chapters go like this...
Intro - definition of "scarcity" and overview of its consequences
Chap. 1 - The good: scarcity can cause focus. The bad: focus can mean inattention to other things.
Chap. 2 - Scarcity causes an internal disruption that makes it harder to make good decisions.
Chap. 3 - Slack (the opposite of scarcity) allows better choices and reduces the bad consequences of failiure.
Chap. 4 - Poor people are sometimes more realistic about estimating costs, because they have to be.
Chap. 5 - Borrowing when you're short of cash leads to a descending spiral of debt.
Chap. 6 & 7 - Poverty is a vicious circle of scarcity leading to bad decisions leading to scarcity...
Chap. 8 - Poverty can be alleviated by creating slack, such as extra cash or day care to create more time.
Chap. 9 - Efficient use of resources and division of labor helps organizations become more efficient.
Chap. 10 - Efficient use of self-control helps with life issues.
On the positive side, the book contains some interesting stories, and a rich set of endnotes to track down the many studies the authors cite. On the negative side, the book keeps talking about how mainstream economics is traditionally (for example, that people are "rational" decision makers), just so the authors can tear down the mainstream view. Economists come across as completely clueless, which maybe they are. Is it really surprising that when you're poor, hungry, and stressed, that you would make less than rational decisions?
Mullainathan and Shafir seem aware of this problem with the book. Chap. 2 contains some defensive passages about how bad decisions under scarcity are different from bad decisions due to stress. The explanation isn't compelling, and unlike most of their other claims, that passage doesn't have lots of studies to back it up.
The most interesting study in the book is one about street vendors in India who are in perpetual debt from a loan-sell-repay cycle (Chap. 6). The researchers give the vendors a cash grant to pay off their debts, which should have allowed them to start saving a little and eventually eliminate the need for borrowing altogether. One by one, though, the vendors fall back into debt. Any non-economist would see this as challenges of personality or habit. It's the same reason why couch potatos find it hard to get off the couch and exercise everyday. The authors, though, somehow turn this into a story of scarcity. How it was because there wasn't enough slack. Why don't they do an experiment where they give everyone a little extra cash to save? They don't, though, and I'd bet good money that with additional cash, the vendors would still have fallen back into debt eventually. What the vendors need is some training and hand-holding.
This study illustrates one of the biggest problems with the book. In order to make a case for the centrality of scarcity, the authors go too far. Not every bad decision is about scarcity. Sometimes, people are dumb, and sometimes there are dumb people. And sometimes, people are smart, and there are also smart people. At one point, the authors write, "all people, if they were poor, would have less effective bandwidth." Not sure about that. My grandmother managed seven kids and ran a shop, but she was dirt poor until her children grew up.
July 14, 2013
The mathematics of queuing theory demonstrates that as resource utilization approaches 100%, queue length and delay increase toward infinity. Systems that are not resilient to congestion reach a point of overload where they experience a decrease in carried load even as offered load increases. We experience this when congested highways encounter “volume delays� � fewer cars per hour get through simply because too many are trying to get through.
The authors apply these principles, without the math, to analyzing several important social problems. Scarcity captures the mind; it focuses us on immediate needs while it diminishes the executive control functions we need for impulse control and to make good longer-term priority decisions. Poverty results from a scarcity of money, aggravated by a scarcity of mental bandwidth needed to plan better use of the available money. Busy people, already suffering from scarcity of time, waste even more time because they don’t have the bandwidth to plan the best use of their time. Diets are difficult to sustain because the scarcity of permitted calories causes a focus on what you can’t eat now while a tunnel vision excludes consideration of healthier options. Lonely people suffer from a scarcity of social contacts. The misery increases with each cycle.
People embroiled in scarcity do not make the rational decisions predicted by traditional economics; instead they consistently make costly short-term decisions. Payday loans that charge exorbitant fees to lend money until your next paycheck arrives are one remarkably popular and costly example. The present is crushing, the future is abstract. Borrowing goes hand-in-hand with scarcity. Poverty causes failure, not the other way around.
The general solution they offer to breaking various scarcity cycles is to introduce slack into the system—capacity that is available to carry unplanned but inevitable surges in resource needs. For example, a chronic shortage of operating rooms at St. John’s Regional Health Center was alleviated when they decided to leave one operating room intentionally unused. The steady flow of unscheduled emergencies was handled by this room without disrupting the scheduling of elective surgery. A focus on efficiency alone has to yield to planning for slack capacity required to handle the unplanned yet inevitable shocks to the system. Henry Ford apparently knew this in 1926 when he famously adopted a shorter 40-hour work week and gained an increase in output over the traditional 60-hour work week.
While traditional systems such as payday loans are often designed to exploit poor decision making during scarcity, systems can be redesigned to help people make better decisions during times of abundance. GlowCaps, pill bottles that glow and beep to remind you to take the medicine each day, are one good example.
The authors apply these principles, without the math, to analyzing several important social problems. Scarcity captures the mind; it focuses us on immediate needs while it diminishes the executive control functions we need for impulse control and to make good longer-term priority decisions. Poverty results from a scarcity of money, aggravated by a scarcity of mental bandwidth needed to plan better use of the available money. Busy people, already suffering from scarcity of time, waste even more time because they don’t have the bandwidth to plan the best use of their time. Diets are difficult to sustain because the scarcity of permitted calories causes a focus on what you can’t eat now while a tunnel vision excludes consideration of healthier options. Lonely people suffer from a scarcity of social contacts. The misery increases with each cycle.
People embroiled in scarcity do not make the rational decisions predicted by traditional economics; instead they consistently make costly short-term decisions. Payday loans that charge exorbitant fees to lend money until your next paycheck arrives are one remarkably popular and costly example. The present is crushing, the future is abstract. Borrowing goes hand-in-hand with scarcity. Poverty causes failure, not the other way around.
The general solution they offer to breaking various scarcity cycles is to introduce slack into the system—capacity that is available to carry unplanned but inevitable surges in resource needs. For example, a chronic shortage of operating rooms at St. John’s Regional Health Center was alleviated when they decided to leave one operating room intentionally unused. The steady flow of unscheduled emergencies was handled by this room without disrupting the scheduling of elective surgery. A focus on efficiency alone has to yield to planning for slack capacity required to handle the unplanned yet inevitable shocks to the system. Henry Ford apparently knew this in 1926 when he famously adopted a shorter 40-hour work week and gained an increase in output over the traditional 60-hour work week.
While traditional systems such as payday loans are often designed to exploit poor decision making during scarcity, systems can be redesigned to help people make better decisions during times of abundance. GlowCaps, pill bottles that glow and beep to remind you to take the medicine each day, are one good example.
December 16, 2019
کتاب فقر احمق می کند جدا از اسم توهین آمیز آن یک اثر بی ارزش است که عناوین و مطالب آن بیشتر همانند روزنامه های اقتصادی یا مطالب کلی هستند که شاید هر کس آنها را به طریقی بداند .
نوشتن کتابهایی این گونه بسیار ساده است ، کتابی که تقصیر و بار مسئولیت را به گردن فرد می اندازد و گویی جامعه یا سیاست یا شرایط اقتصادی هیچ گونه نقشی ندارد ، به این ترتیب تمامی مشکلات به گردن طبقه فقیرکه متاسفانه در عنوان کتاب به نوعی احمق هم شناخته شده اند ، انداخته می شود .
کتاب مرا یاد نصیحت های شیرین پدربزرگ ها ومادربزرگ ها می اندازد ، بدون آنکه اندکی از شیرینی و حلاوت حرفهای آنان را داشته باشد و این که موعظه های کتاب یک سری حرفهای کلی امتحان پس نداده و خام هستند .
نوشتن کتابهایی این گونه بسیار ساده است ، کتابی که تقصیر و بار مسئولیت را به گردن فرد می اندازد و گویی جامعه یا سیاست یا شرایط اقتصادی هیچ گونه نقشی ندارد ، به این ترتیب تمامی مشکلات به گردن طبقه فقیرکه متاسفانه در عنوان کتاب به نوعی احمق هم شناخته شده اند ، انداخته می شود .
کتاب مرا یاد نصیحت های شیرین پدربزرگ ها ومادربزرگ ها می اندازد ، بدون آنکه اندکی از شیرینی و حلاوت حرفهای آنان را داشته باشد و این که موعظه های کتاب یک سری حرفهای کلی امتحان پس نداده و خام هستند .
November 23, 2019
خیلی خوب بود.
ترکیب زیبایی از روانشنانسی و اقتصاد که خیلی هم خشک و علمی مقاله وار نوشته نشده و توش کلی احساس هم هست.
همه ی کتاب هول فقر به معنای پولی اون نیست . فقر در این کتاب به عنوان چیزی که کمیابی در زندگی فرد داره مطرحه
مثلا ممکنه کسی دچار فقر زمانی باشه ، به این معنی که توی زندگیش چیزی که کم داره وقت هست که مثلا با خانواده ش بگذرونه یا بره تفریح یا هر چی
کس دیگه ای هم ممکنه فقر اقتصادی داشته باشه که همه ی با مفهومش آشنا هستیم . خلاصه هر کمبودی
کتاب سعی می کنه در یک سوم ابتدایی انواع فقر رو به این شکل نشون بده بعد برای یک سوم دوم تا نزدیکی های آخر کتاب کلی مطالعه و تحقیق رو معرفی می کنه و توضیح می ده و از این طریق سعی در اثبات فرآیند کار کردن مغز انسان داره در زمانی که دچار فقر هست حالا هر فقری
خیلی جالبه وقتی می بینید توی نتایج یه مطالعه مشخص شده یه آدم مولتی میلیونر البته به دلار وقتی به جلسات کاریش نمی رسه و دچار وقت زمان می شه با یه فقیر که از بی پولی داره گرسنگی می کشه با اونی که گرسنه نیست ولی اجاره خونه ش عقب افتاده و اونی که پول نداره ماشینش رو تعمیر کنه ذهن هاشون رفتار های یکسانی می کنه
عملا همه شون یه بلا سرشون می آد
نهایتا آخر کتاب هم سعی کرده در حد عقل و توان نویسنده هاش راهکار بده
کتاب رو دونفر نوشتن که هر کدوم در رشته ی تخصصی خودشون یعنی روانشناسی و دیگری اقتصاد جزئی از 100 متفکر برتر دنیا به انتخاب نشریات معتبر بودن و انتشارات آدم حسابی ترجمان هم چاپش کرده
به نظر من بخونید خوب و آموزنده ست و حتما توی زندگی و درک خود و دیگران به کار آدم می آد.
ترکیب زیبایی از روانشنانسی و اقتصاد که خیلی هم خشک و علمی مقاله وار نوشته نشده و توش کلی احساس هم هست.
همه ی کتاب هول فقر به معنای پولی اون نیست . فقر در این کتاب به عنوان چیزی که کمیابی در زندگی فرد داره مطرحه
مثلا ممکنه کسی دچار فقر زمانی باشه ، به این معنی که توی زندگیش چیزی که کم داره وقت هست که مثلا با خانواده ش بگذرونه یا بره تفریح یا هر چی
کس دیگه ای هم ممکنه فقر اقتصادی داشته باشه که همه ی با مفهومش آشنا هستیم . خلاصه هر کمبودی
کتاب سعی می کنه در یک سوم ابتدایی انواع فقر رو به این شکل نشون بده بعد برای یک سوم دوم تا نزدیکی های آخر کتاب کلی مطالعه و تحقیق رو معرفی می کنه و توضیح می ده و از این طریق سعی در اثبات فرآیند کار کردن مغز انسان داره در زمانی که دچار فقر هست حالا هر فقری
خیلی جالبه وقتی می بینید توی نتایج یه مطالعه مشخص شده یه آدم مولتی میلیونر البته به دلار وقتی به جلسات کاریش نمی رسه و دچار وقت زمان می شه با یه فقیر که از بی پولی داره گرسنگی می کشه با اونی که گرسنه نیست ولی اجاره خونه ش عقب افتاده و اونی که پول نداره ماشینش رو تعمیر کنه ذهن هاشون رفتار های یکسانی می کنه
عملا همه شون یه بلا سرشون می آد
نهایتا آخر کتاب هم سعی کرده در حد عقل و توان نویسنده هاش راهکار بده
کتاب رو دونفر نوشتن که هر کدوم در رشته ی تخصصی خودشون یعنی روانشناسی و دیگری اقتصاد جزئی از 100 متفکر برتر دنیا به انتخاب نشریات معتبر بودن و انتشارات آدم حسابی ترجمان هم چاپش کرده
به نظر من بخونید خوب و آموزنده ست و حتما توی زندگی و درک خود و دیگران به کار آدم می آد.
October 13, 2013
While I find the topic very interesting and the science and research put into understanding the scarcity factor intriguing, I think the book was overly long, repetitive and quite frankly circular. Many of the points and ideas made were well described early in the book and yet 70% of it was just regurgitating the same themes. Many books are written in such manner especially when they deal with non-fiction topics and this book is no different. Editors must be gunning for volume and as such authors are forced to write the same thing over and over again in different words. The book did a good job explaining the issue and yet did not offer much on terms of strategies to handle. In short good (albeit long and repetitive) description of the problem and almost no solutions. Advice to new readers; You can bail out after the first third and not miss anything of substance. I stuck to the end and can attest to that.
November 27, 2019
این کتاب در مورد کمیابی‌س�. کمیابی یعنی از هر منبعی به اندازه‌ا� که فکر می‌کنی� باید داشته باشید، ندارید. این منبع می‌توان� پول، وقت، روابط اجتماعی و یا موارد دیگر باشد.
نویسندگان اول به تنها مزیت کمیابی اشاره می‌کنن� -افزایش تمرکز- و بعد معایب کمیابی را تشریح می‌کنن� که از جمله می‌توا� به تسخیر ذهن، کاهش پهنای باند (ظرفیت ذهنی)، تونل‌زن� (غفلت از سایر کارها) و ... اشاره کرد. سپس نشان می‌دهن� که کمیابی چگونه باعث ایجاد حواس‌پرت� می‌شود� نحوه� تصمیم‌گیر� را تغییر میدهد� آی‌کی� را کاهش میده� و ... تعدادی راهکار نیز برای کاهش اثرات کمیابی ارائه می‌دهن� از جمله اهمیت داشتن ضرب‌الاجل� فضای خالی، یادآوری و خودکار کردن انجام بعضی کارها. در انتها نیز توصیه‌های� برای برنامه‌ها� فقرزدایی دولت‌ها� برنامه‌ریز� سازمان‌ه� و زندگی روزمره ارائه شده است.
من در هر حاضر هر سه نوع کمیابی را تجربه میکن�: کمبود وقت و پول و انزوای اجتماعی و از این نظر مباحث کتاب برایم بسیار جالب بود، اما راهکارهایی که کتاب ارائ�� داده بود در این دو ماه موثر واقع نشد (به خاطر این موضوع یک ستاره کم کردم!). به جز این چیزی که توجهم را بسیار جلب کرد نحوه� طراحی و اجرای آزمایش‌ه� برای بررسی فرضیات مختلف بود. به نظرم دوستانی که به مباحث اجتماعی و اقتصادی علاقمند هستند می‌توانن� ایده‌ها� زیادی از این آزمایش‌ه� بگیرند.
ترجمه در کل خوب بود، اما من ترجیح می‌داد� معادل انگلیسی عبارات مختلف نظیر تونل‌زنی� ژانگولربازی و موارد مشابه پانویس شود.
پ.ن.: با مطالعه ی این کتاب چلنج امسالم به پایان رسید :)
نویسندگان اول به تنها مزیت کمیابی اشاره می‌کنن� -افزایش تمرکز- و بعد معایب کمیابی را تشریح می‌کنن� که از جمله می‌توا� به تسخیر ذهن، کاهش پهنای باند (ظرفیت ذهنی)، تونل‌زن� (غفلت از سایر کارها) و ... اشاره کرد. سپس نشان می‌دهن� که کمیابی چگونه باعث ایجاد حواس‌پرت� می‌شود� نحوه� تصمیم‌گیر� را تغییر میدهد� آی‌کی� را کاهش میده� و ... تعدادی راهکار نیز برای کاهش اثرات کمیابی ارائه می‌دهن� از جمله اهمیت داشتن ضرب‌الاجل� فضای خالی، یادآوری و خودکار کردن انجام بعضی کارها. در انتها نیز توصیه‌های� برای برنامه‌ها� فقرزدایی دولت‌ها� برنامه‌ریز� سازمان‌ه� و زندگی روزمره ارائه شده است.
من در هر حاضر هر سه نوع کمیابی را تجربه میکن�: کمبود وقت و پول و انزوای اجتماعی و از این نظر مباحث کتاب برایم بسیار جالب بود، اما راهکارهایی که کتاب ارائ�� داده بود در این دو ماه موثر واقع نشد (به خاطر این موضوع یک ستاره کم کردم!). به جز این چیزی که توجهم را بسیار جلب کرد نحوه� طراحی و اجرای آزمایش‌ه� برای بررسی فرضیات مختلف بود. به نظرم دوستانی که به مباحث اجتماعی و اقتصادی علاقمند هستند می‌توانن� ایده‌ها� زیادی از این آزمایش‌ه� بگیرند.
ترجمه در کل خوب بود، اما من ترجیح می‌داد� معادل انگلیسی عبارات مختلف نظیر تونل‌زنی� ژانگولربازی و موارد مشابه پانویس شود.
پ.ن.: با مطالعه ی این کتاب چلنج امسالم به پایان رسید :)
September 17, 2014
There is no scarcity of books about the brain and psychology and emotion. In fact, the shelves are groaning with them. But here's a psychological take on what you might regard as a problem of economics - and that makes it genuinely fascinating. So it's a shame that it doesn't work better as a book - but this is one of those titles that you will want to read despite that.
The authors Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir look at the nature of scarcity and, crucially, the effect it has on human performance. You might hear the term and think it's about going hungry - and that is one example of scarcity - but they also look at what happens when money, time and even friends are in short supply. Although they aren't exact analogues, all have related impacts on us as human beings.
By referencing the best available studies (and doing a few of their own), the authors come to some important conclusions. Scarcity isn't all bad. It concentrates the mind - gives us focus. But there is a price to pay for being in that tunnel. It means that other essential aspects of life get ignored. And, most strikingly, what the authors call 'bandwidth' - a combination of cognitive ability and ability to concentrate - is reduced. They call this a 'bandwidth tax'.
So far, so engaging. We aren't just offered the symptoms and diagnosis, but also some attempts to counter this. Pointing out, for instance, that it's better for people to make decisions and learn things when they are going through a good phase than through scarcity. However I have two problems with this as a book. One is that while it's no textbook, it really isn't particularly readable - it takes a really interesting subject and makes it a bit dull. And the other is that there are strong signs that this is really a magazine article, not a book. For page after page the same thing is said in subtly different ways. If I see the word 'bandwidth' again today, I'll scream. The meat of this book could easily fit in 4,000 words.
So, paradoxically, I do urge you to read the book, as the subject is well worth exploring - but I can't promise that you will enjoy the experience.
The authors Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir look at the nature of scarcity and, crucially, the effect it has on human performance. You might hear the term and think it's about going hungry - and that is one example of scarcity - but they also look at what happens when money, time and even friends are in short supply. Although they aren't exact analogues, all have related impacts on us as human beings.
By referencing the best available studies (and doing a few of their own), the authors come to some important conclusions. Scarcity isn't all bad. It concentrates the mind - gives us focus. But there is a price to pay for being in that tunnel. It means that other essential aspects of life get ignored. And, most strikingly, what the authors call 'bandwidth' - a combination of cognitive ability and ability to concentrate - is reduced. They call this a 'bandwidth tax'.
So far, so engaging. We aren't just offered the symptoms and diagnosis, but also some attempts to counter this. Pointing out, for instance, that it's better for people to make decisions and learn things when they are going through a good phase than through scarcity. However I have two problems with this as a book. One is that while it's no textbook, it really isn't particularly readable - it takes a really interesting subject and makes it a bit dull. And the other is that there are strong signs that this is really a magazine article, not a book. For page after page the same thing is said in subtly different ways. If I see the word 'bandwidth' again today, I'll scream. The meat of this book could easily fit in 4,000 words.
So, paradoxically, I do urge you to read the book, as the subject is well worth exploring - but I can't promise that you will enjoy the experience.
March 31, 2020
یه کتاب خوب برای کسایی که همیشه وقت یا پول کم میارن
کسایی که خیلی کار دارن و همش دارن میدون، ولی بازم کمه
دید مناسبی از مکانیزم های کمیابی میده که درک خوبی از اتفاقی که در این شرایط برای ما میوفته میده، این درک میتونه در حل مشکل کمک کننده باشه
ادبیات کتاب هم با اینکه کتابی علمی با ارائه� نتیجه تحقیقات و بررسی های مختلف هستش، اما ساده و روان و قابل فهمه برای همه
ضعف� کتاب هم لاغر بودن بخش راه حل‌هایی� که ارائه میکنه، بیشتر به شناخت وضعیت کمک میکنه تا ارائه راهکارهای عملیاتی مقابله با مشکل
کسایی که خیلی کار دارن و همش دارن میدون، ولی بازم کمه
دید مناسبی از مکانیزم های کمیابی میده که درک خوبی از اتفاقی که در این شرایط برای ما میوفته میده، این درک میتونه در حل مشکل کمک کننده باشه
ادبیات کتاب هم با اینکه کتابی علمی با ارائه� نتیجه تحقیقات و بررسی های مختلف هستش، اما ساده و روان و قابل فهمه برای همه
ضعف� کتاب هم لاغر بودن بخش راه حل‌هایی� که ارائه میکنه، بیشتر به شناخت وضعیت کمک میکنه تا ارائه راهکارهای عملیاتی مقابله با مشکل
January 10, 2023
عنوان اصلی کتاب Scarcity به معنای کمیابی با این فلسفه به بیان زندگی میپردازه که ما در صورت کمبود اولویت رو با نیاز های فوری خودمون قرار میدیم نه مهم و تصمیمات غلط بیشتری میگیریم. در این کتاب با موضوعاتی نظیر پهنای باند، تونل زنی، جای خالی و فراوانی آشنا میشیم و اینکه چطور این مسائل بر نحوه عملکرد مغز، مباحث شناختی، اراده، تصمیم گیریها و در نهایت زندگیمون تاثیر میگذاره به علت نگاه علمی پژوهشی در این کتاب بنظرم خوندنش برای روانشناسها جامعه شناسها و تمامی علاقمندان به علوم ،پژوهشی میتونه بسیار لذت بخش باشه.
هر چند نسبت محتوا کتاب به حجم اون خیلی زیاد نیست اما توصیه میکنم این کتاب روون رو همه بخونن
بخش هایی از کتاب رو پایین برای شما آوردم
همان طور که هنری دیوید ثورو گفته «انسان
به اندازۀ چیزهایی که میتواند نادیده بگیرد ثروتمند است».
همان طور که افراد درگیر گرسنگی مهلک به چیزی جز غذا فکر نمیکنند همهٔ ما در مواجهه با هر نوع کمیابی جذبش میشویم ذهن به شکلی خودکار و پرقدرت به سمت نیازهای برآورده نشده متمایل می.شود
هر چند نسبت محتوا کتاب به حجم اون خیلی زیاد نیست اما توصیه میکنم این کتاب روون رو همه بخونن
بخش هایی از کتاب رو پایین برای شما آوردم
همان طور که هنری دیوید ثورو گفته «انسان
به اندازۀ چیزهایی که میتواند نادیده بگیرد ثروتمند است».
همان طور که افراد درگیر گرسنگی مهلک به چیزی جز غذا فکر نمیکنند همهٔ ما در مواجهه با هر نوع کمیابی جذبش میشویم ذهن به شکلی خودکار و پرقدرت به سمت نیازهای برآورده نشده متمایل می.شود
November 10, 2014
This extremely important book takes a close and counter-intuitive look at how the brain behaves when confronted with the lack of something. That something is often money, but it can also be time, or will power, or human connection. In a nutshell, it explains how the brain's default method of creating immediate solutions to urgent problems can very often create a much larger problem down the road.
The reason for this is that urgent problems causes the brain to tunnel, which takes a tremendous amount of cognitive processing capacity. Focus on the immediate problem creates a "tax" on processing power that impairs the ability to step back and take a wider view of the situation; in particular, it causes us to underestimate the long-term costs of what may seem on the surface to be a good short-term solution.
This book is written in a fairly academic style and is somewhat repetitive in the first half. While it is not a self help book, it does contain critical information on how we can counteract mental habits that keep us in a scarcity loop. It also contains scores of real world examples of the bandwidth tax in action, from farmers in India to small business owners in the Caribbean to air traffic controllers in the Midwest. That latter group offered a particularly unique example of the bandwidth tax - on days when flights were backed up and they were required to manage a heavier load of airborne planes than normal, they demonstrated decreased ability to parent their children in a consistent fashion.
I originally assumed this would be an academically interesting book that would be most useful to those who develop aid programs. It is definitely that, as the authors address how many programs designed to help people get out of poverty fail because their structure contributes to a worsening of this bandwidth tax.
In reading it, however, I also saw more and more of myself in its pages. Though it took me weeks to finish it because I was trying to put out so many fires at work (the irony of it ending up overdue at the library was not lost on me) it gave me tremendous insight into how I had ended up so far behind and what I need to do to fix that. Thanks to Richard for encouraging me to bump it up my list.
The reason for this is that urgent problems causes the brain to tunnel, which takes a tremendous amount of cognitive processing capacity. Focus on the immediate problem creates a "tax" on processing power that impairs the ability to step back and take a wider view of the situation; in particular, it causes us to underestimate the long-term costs of what may seem on the surface to be a good short-term solution.
This book is written in a fairly academic style and is somewhat repetitive in the first half. While it is not a self help book, it does contain critical information on how we can counteract mental habits that keep us in a scarcity loop. It also contains scores of real world examples of the bandwidth tax in action, from farmers in India to small business owners in the Caribbean to air traffic controllers in the Midwest. That latter group offered a particularly unique example of the bandwidth tax - on days when flights were backed up and they were required to manage a heavier load of airborne planes than normal, they demonstrated decreased ability to parent their children in a consistent fashion.
I originally assumed this would be an academically interesting book that would be most useful to those who develop aid programs. It is definitely that, as the authors address how many programs designed to help people get out of poverty fail because their structure contributes to a worsening of this bandwidth tax.
In reading it, however, I also saw more and more of myself in its pages. Though it took me weeks to finish it because I was trying to put out so many fires at work (the irony of it ending up overdue at the library was not lost on me) it gave me tremendous insight into how I had ended up so far behind and what I need to do to fix that. Thanks to Richard for encouraging me to bump it up my list.
April 17, 2022
امتیاز 2.5
اول از همه باید این سوال رو از مترجم پرسید که چرا این عنوان را برای ترجمه انتخاب کرده. نام اصلی کتاب هست:Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much
که هر جور ترجمه ش کنیم باز هم کلمات فقر و احمق از توش بیرون نمیاد. مگر اینکه مترجم دنبال هدف خاصی غیر از بازاریابی بوده باشه که از اون مطلع نیستم.
جایی از کتاب هم چنین چیزی رو نشون نمیده.
در مورد کتاب، اول اینکه کلا این دست کتابها رو با دیده شک و تردید و با گارد باهاشون مواجه میشم.
کتاب یک سری عناوین و مضامینی رو همون اول معرفی میکنه مثل پهنای باند و کمیابی و تونل زدن. تا انتهای کتاب برای همین مضامین مثال میاره و تکرار میکنه. کلا 100-120 صفحه اول کتاب برام جالب بود و بقیه ش تکرار همون 100-120 صفحه بود با مثالهای دیگه.
خیلی از نتیجه گیری های داخل کتاب هم به نظرم بدیهی و روشنه و نیاز به اینهمه توضیح نداشت.
به نوعی این کتاب هم همون حرفهای موجود در کتابهای برنامه ریزی و مدیریت زمان و قورباغه خواری رو تکرار میکنه، البته با مضامین و تعاریفی جدید.
خلاص
اول از همه باید این سوال رو از مترجم پرسید که چرا این عنوان را برای ترجمه انتخاب کرده. نام اصلی کتاب هست:Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much
که هر جور ترجمه ش کنیم باز هم کلمات فقر و احمق از توش بیرون نمیاد. مگر اینکه مترجم دنبال هدف خاصی غیر از بازاریابی بوده باشه که از اون مطلع نیستم.
جایی از کتاب هم چنین چیزی رو نشون نمیده.
در مورد کتاب، اول اینکه کلا این دست کتابها رو با دیده شک و تردید و با گارد باهاشون مواجه میشم.
کتاب یک سری عناوین و مضامینی رو همون اول معرفی میکنه مثل پهنای باند و کمیابی و تونل زدن. تا انتهای کتاب برای همین مضامین مثال میاره و تکرار میکنه. کلا 100-120 صفحه اول کتاب برام جالب بود و بقیه ش تکرار همون 100-120 صفحه بود با مثالهای دیگه.
خیلی از نتیجه گیری های داخل کتاب هم به نظرم بدیهی و روشنه و نیاز به اینهمه توضیح نداشت.
به نوعی این کتاب هم همون حرفهای موجود در کتابهای برنامه ریزی و مدیریت زمان و قورباغه خواری رو تکرار میکنه، البته با مضامین و تعاریفی جدید.
خلاص
June 20, 2022
"Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much" já é de 2013, ou seja pertence a uma época em que economia comportamental, dos vieses cognitivos sobre a racionalização, se estava a afirmar. Aqui, o enfoque, de Sendhil Mullainathan e Eldar Shafir, é todo realizado sobre a ideia de escassez, algo que já conhecemos do mundo da persuasão social, mas aqui é analisado de uma perspectiva distinta. Ou seja, sabemos que as pessoas reagem de forma mais interessada quando um produto é escasso (ex. o ouro; daí a criação dos NFT). Ou seja, as pessoas tendem a focar-se no que há pouco, nomeadamente no que lhes faz falta. Daí, Mullainathan e Shafir tentaram compreender como é que essa focagem cognitiva afeta as nossas vidas, e fá-lo não só a partir do caso financeiro, mas também das dietas, da solidão, ou da falta de tempo.
O que Mullainathan e Shafir encontraram pode sintetizar-se em poucas palavras. A percepção de falta de recursos - seja tempo, dinheiro ou mesmo amizade - influencia a nossa tomada de decisões, podendo mesmo mudar a forma como concebemos a realidade que nos rodeia. Quando algum recurso se torna escasso, o nosso cérebro concentra todo o seu esforço na gestão desse recurso. Como tal, dirige para o mesmo todo o seu esforço, procurando a qualquer custo reduzir essa escassez. Deste modo, quando uma pessoa tem falta de dinheiro, o seu cérebro começa a bloquear todas as questões além desta, conduzindo a pessoa a tomar decisões erradas apenas com o fim de suprimir de forma o mais imediato possível essa escassez. Os empréstimos rápidos entram aqui que nem uma luva. Não pensamos nos 15% que vamos ter de pagar daqui a 1 mês, porque o nosso cérebro não dedica qualquer esforço a esse cálculo, apenas interessa suprimir a necessidade atual.
Este ponto conduziu Mullainathan e Shafir a definir o conceito de "armadilha da escassez", que nos diz que que os nossos cérebros se concentram tão desesperadamente no que falta que pensar em qualquer outra coisa se torna quase impossível. E o que impressiona mais, é que este modo atua perante a escassez de qualquer recurso. Quando entramos em dietas, focamo-nos de tal modo em não consumir calorias a ponto de esgotar a nossa reserva de força-de-vontade e acabar por cair na tentação. Ou quando temos falta de tempo para nos dedicar à família, focamo-nos de tal modo em realizar as tarefas para ganhar tempo que acabamos por nos sobrecarregar com ainda mais detalhes que tornam impossível terminar e conseguir ter tempo livre.
Mullainathan e Shafir oferecem algumas pistas sobre como trabalhar o viés, e naturalmente que o desvio do foco é essencial, parar mentalmente de pensar em, ou pensar noutra coisa, procurar secundarizar aquilo que nos faz falta. O problema maior acontece com a falta de dinheiro em quem não o tem, porque o problema não desaparece apenas esquecendo que ele falta. Contudo, a ação aqui deve partir da sociedade, sabendo que quanto mais o pobre se esforça para não ser pobre menos conseguirá dedicar-se ao resto, nomeadamente a educação e saúde dos seus. Cria-se um ciclo de pobreza que se repete a cada geração, por isso cabe-nos a nós, sociedade, criar as condições de suporte para que aquilo que fica para trás � a educação, saúde, segurança, etc. � possa ser garantido enquanto as pessoas se concentram na busca das condições financeiras para os seus.
O que Mullainathan e Shafir encontraram pode sintetizar-se em poucas palavras. A percepção de falta de recursos - seja tempo, dinheiro ou mesmo amizade - influencia a nossa tomada de decisões, podendo mesmo mudar a forma como concebemos a realidade que nos rodeia. Quando algum recurso se torna escasso, o nosso cérebro concentra todo o seu esforço na gestão desse recurso. Como tal, dirige para o mesmo todo o seu esforço, procurando a qualquer custo reduzir essa escassez. Deste modo, quando uma pessoa tem falta de dinheiro, o seu cérebro começa a bloquear todas as questões além desta, conduzindo a pessoa a tomar decisões erradas apenas com o fim de suprimir de forma o mais imediato possível essa escassez. Os empréstimos rápidos entram aqui que nem uma luva. Não pensamos nos 15% que vamos ter de pagar daqui a 1 mês, porque o nosso cérebro não dedica qualquer esforço a esse cálculo, apenas interessa suprimir a necessidade atual.
Este ponto conduziu Mullainathan e Shafir a definir o conceito de "armadilha da escassez", que nos diz que que os nossos cérebros se concentram tão desesperadamente no que falta que pensar em qualquer outra coisa se torna quase impossível. E o que impressiona mais, é que este modo atua perante a escassez de qualquer recurso. Quando entramos em dietas, focamo-nos de tal modo em não consumir calorias a ponto de esgotar a nossa reserva de força-de-vontade e acabar por cair na tentação. Ou quando temos falta de tempo para nos dedicar à família, focamo-nos de tal modo em realizar as tarefas para ganhar tempo que acabamos por nos sobrecarregar com ainda mais detalhes que tornam impossível terminar e conseguir ter tempo livre.
Mullainathan e Shafir oferecem algumas pistas sobre como trabalhar o viés, e naturalmente que o desvio do foco é essencial, parar mentalmente de pensar em, ou pensar noutra coisa, procurar secundarizar aquilo que nos faz falta. O problema maior acontece com a falta de dinheiro em quem não o tem, porque o problema não desaparece apenas esquecendo que ele falta. Contudo, a ação aqui deve partir da sociedade, sabendo que quanto mais o pobre se esforça para não ser pobre menos conseguirá dedicar-se ao resto, nomeadamente a educação e saúde dos seus. Cria-se um ciclo de pobreza que se repete a cada geração, por isso cabe-nos a nós, sociedade, criar as condições de suporte para que aquilo que fica para trás � a educação, saúde, segurança, etc. � possa ser garantido enquanto as pessoas se concentram na busca das condições financeiras para os seus.
February 13, 2014
Some people say poor people have poor ways, the implication being that they are poor because of their poor ways. These authors maintain that the reverse is true, that people have poor ways because they are poor. They say it can be explained by the psychology of scarcity.
What will suprise many readers is that rich (or non-poor) persons manifest the same behavior attributed to poor people when subjected to situations of scarcity (e.g. lack of time). In other words, the rich often have poor ways too, but they have enough money of cover the fiscal mistakes. However, the psycholgy of scarcity can show up in scarcity of time and friends as well as money and the psychology of scarcity can come into play for all social and economic classes.
This book finds surprising links and similarities between the stressed-out time-poor of the west with the truly poor dollar-a-day workers of the developing world. Many wealthy people who are critical of the behavior of poor people will be surprised to learn from this book that they share the same behavior patterns as the very poor when in an environment of scarcity. The psychology of scarcity and its resulting behavior can be witnessed when there's a scarcity of time, money, or relationships with others.
Two terms repeatedly used in this book are "bandwidth" and "tunneling." Bandwidth refers the limited number of things that any human can focus on at one time. The results of this limited bandwidth leads to a kind of cognitive tunnel, limiting what a person is able to focus on at one time. Limited bandwidth and tunneling depletes self control and leads to impulsive and sometimes dumb behavior. Unfortunately this behavior can spiral into a trap of worsening scarcity.
The authors bring an abundance of examples from their respective fields of study to support their descriptions of the psychological and behavioral consequences of the feeling of scarcity. Sendhil Mullainathan is a behavioral economist and Eldar Shafir is a cognitive psychologist.
What will suprise many readers is that rich (or non-poor) persons manifest the same behavior attributed to poor people when subjected to situations of scarcity (e.g. lack of time). In other words, the rich often have poor ways too, but they have enough money of cover the fiscal mistakes. However, the psycholgy of scarcity can show up in scarcity of time and friends as well as money and the psychology of scarcity can come into play for all social and economic classes.
This book finds surprising links and similarities between the stressed-out time-poor of the west with the truly poor dollar-a-day workers of the developing world. Many wealthy people who are critical of the behavior of poor people will be surprised to learn from this book that they share the same behavior patterns as the very poor when in an environment of scarcity. The psychology of scarcity and its resulting behavior can be witnessed when there's a scarcity of time, money, or relationships with others.
Two terms repeatedly used in this book are "bandwidth" and "tunneling." Bandwidth refers the limited number of things that any human can focus on at one time. The results of this limited bandwidth leads to a kind of cognitive tunnel, limiting what a person is able to focus on at one time. Limited bandwidth and tunneling depletes self control and leads to impulsive and sometimes dumb behavior. Unfortunately this behavior can spiral into a trap of worsening scarcity.
The authors bring an abundance of examples from their respective fields of study to support their descriptions of the psychological and behavioral consequences of the feeling of scarcity. Sendhil Mullainathan is a behavioral economist and Eldar Shafir is a cognitive psychologist.
March 27, 2023
مبگه کمبود منابع می‌تون� روی تمام جنبه‌ها� پروداکتیو بودن ما اثر بذاره. و این منابع منحصر به پول یا حتی زمان نیستن. اونجایی که پهنای باند ذهن‌مو� کم میشه، یکی از اصلی‌تری� دلایلش همین کمبود منابعه، چون انگار پسِ مرورگر ذهن‌مو� هزاران تب بازه و خب این کلی از ظرفیت مغز برای خلاقیت، کاهش خطا، و تمرکز روی آنچه اصله کم میکنه.
مثلا میگه اونی که در فقر مطلق هست، اصلا مغزش دیگه ظرفیتی نداره واسه کارهای بزرگ و پیشرفت و � (حالا نمونه‌ها� استثنایی رو کار نداریم. جنرال حرف میزنه)
نقدم بهش اینه که با اینکه هر دو نویسنده آکادمین بودن، فقط موارد مختلف رو دسته‌بند� کردن و کلا حالت ریویو داشت. توی بررسی پژوهشا فقط راه‌حل‌ها� با ابعاد بزرگ مثلا سازمانی، اجتماعی،� مطرح شده اما در ابعاد شخصی حتی سرنخی داده نشد، یا حداقل من متوجه نشدم.
این بود جان کلام.
حالا برید ازش چهارصد صفحه پایان‌نامه� ارشد بنویسین و هزاران مقاله 🚶🏻♀�
پ.ن.۱
این کتاب رو به فارسی با عنوان جالبی ترجمه کردن:
«فقر احمق میکند�
پ.ن.۲
یه یادداشتای خلاصه سریعی نوشته بودم و الان مرورشون کردم و دیدم راه‌حل� که ارائه داده واسه افزایش پهنای باند ذهن، حضور در زمان حاله.
چشم رییس! خسته نباشی واقعا
[چشم‌های� را در حدقه می‌چرخاند]
مثلا میگه اونی که در فقر مطلق هست، اصلا مغزش دیگه ظرفیتی نداره واسه کارهای بزرگ و پیشرفت و � (حالا نمونه‌ها� استثنایی رو کار نداریم. جنرال حرف میزنه)
نقدم بهش اینه که با اینکه هر دو نویسنده آکادمین بودن، فقط موارد مختلف رو دسته‌بند� کردن و کلا حالت ریویو داشت. توی بررسی پژوهشا فقط راه‌حل‌ها� با ابعاد بزرگ مثلا سازمانی، اجتماعی،� مطرح شده اما در ابعاد شخصی حتی سرنخی داده نشد، یا حداقل من متوجه نشدم.
این بود جان کلام.
حالا برید ازش چهارصد صفحه پایان‌نامه� ارشد بنویسین و هزاران مقاله 🚶🏻♀�
پ.ن.۱
این کتاب رو به فارسی با عنوان جالبی ترجمه کردن:
«فقر احمق میکند�
پ.ن.۲
یه یادداشتای خلاصه سریعی نوشته بودم و الان مرورشون کردم و دیدم راه‌حل� که ارائه داده واسه افزایش پهنای باند ذهن، حضور در زمان حاله.
چشم رییس! خسته نباشی واقعا
[چشم‌های� را در حدقه می‌چرخاند]
August 4, 2022
من این کتاب رو خیلی دوست داشتم!!
مانور کلی کتاب روی مبحث کمیابی و تسخیر ذهن توسط اون هست و مطالبی که بیان میکن� و مثالهای� که می‌زن� خیلی برای درک بهتر مفهوم کمک کنندس.
فقر احمق میکند شاید توی دسته کتابها� اقتصادی قرار بگیره اما اصلا شبیه بقیه کتابها� اقتصادی خشک و پر از توضیحات سخت و ناواضح نیست.
این کتاب فقر رو از منظر دیگه‌ا� به من نشون داد و بسیار لذت بردم از خوندن و یاد گرفتنش.
مانور کلی کتاب روی مبحث کمیابی و تسخیر ذهن توسط اون هست و مطالبی که بیان میکن� و مثالهای� که می‌زن� خیلی برای درک بهتر مفهوم کمک کنندس.
فقر احمق میکند شاید توی دسته کتابها� اقتصادی قرار بگیره اما اصلا شبیه بقیه کتابها� اقتصادی خشک و پر از توضیحات سخت و ناواضح نیست.
این کتاب فقر رو از منظر دیگه‌ا� به من نشون داد و بسیار لذت بردم از خوندن و یاد گرفتنش.
January 21, 2024
کتاب خوبی بود که به بررسی اثر کمیابی (و نه فقط کمیابی مادی) بر روی پهنای باند ذهنی آدم‌ه� پرداخته. ولی نمی‌دون� چرا باید عنوان کتاب که همین کمیابی است به «فقر احمق میکند� ترجمه شود. که اتفاقا برخلاف چیزیه که در کتاب گفته می‌ش�. ایده� کتاب اینه که افراد ظرفیت� ذهنیشون با کمیابی‌ه� کم نمی‌شه� پهنای باندی که میتونن ازش استفاده کنن کم می‌ش�.
October 3, 2016
Best book I've read recently. This will change the way you think about poverty and other sorts of scarcity. Since I read it, I keep bringing it up in conversation. If you work with anyone that is poor or are involved in social policy whatsoever, you must understand this fascinating research.
November 16, 2024
“کمیاب� می تواند ما را کاراتر کند. همه ما این تجربه را داشته ایم که وقتی چیزهای کمتری در اختیارمان بوده و احساس محدودیت کرده ایم، کارهای قابل توجهی انجام داده ایم.�
December 17, 2013
The premise of the book is that we have a limited amount of mental bandwidth and we use a bit of that bandwidth each time we address a problem. Poverty, time pressure, and responsibilities all tax our mental bandwidth, even when we are not actively thinking about them. The value of this text is not in highlighting that pressure from outside factors affects us all the time, but rather in explaining the importance of considering bandwidth in designing programs, assigning tasks, etc.
"Scarcity" provides a lexicon that is severely lacking from the conversations of social entrepreneurs, behavioral economists, and managers alike. A quick read, I highly recommend this to anyone who has ever been perplexed by the disconnect between knowing what to do and being able to do it.
"Scarcity" provides a lexicon that is severely lacking from the conversations of social entrepreneurs, behavioral economists, and managers alike. A quick read, I highly recommend this to anyone who has ever been perplexed by the disconnect between knowing what to do and being able to do it.
April 17, 2015
What do you know, having too much to do can cause one to lose focus, become scatterbrained, and experience frustration. And I'll be, working under pressure can lead to increased productivity if not better results.
The authors' anecdotes were amusing. But overall this book was more "duh" than epiphany. I'd hoped to learn something new, but instead I feel like this was a 300+ page exercise in being preached to by a pair of ivory tower dwellers who probably have wasted valuable resources (theirs and mine) to tell me what I think I already know.
I'm not so sure my scarce time and effort were best spent on this outing.
The authors' anecdotes were amusing. But overall this book was more "duh" than epiphany. I'd hoped to learn something new, but instead I feel like this was a 300+ page exercise in being preached to by a pair of ivory tower dwellers who probably have wasted valuable resources (theirs and mine) to tell me what I think I already know.
I'm not so sure my scarce time and effort were best spent on this outing.
April 19, 2022
این کتاب ، مطلب برای آموختن زیاد دارد. اما آنجایی که حرف از مسائل اقتصادی میزند ، دم خروسش بیرون میزند که این کتاب برای جوامع غربی نوشته شده که با مساله تورم در اقتصاد بیگانه اند! خیلی از مشکلات امروز در ایران ناشی از تورم است که در این کتاب هیچ اشاره ای به آن نمی شود! کتاب اسم زشت و توهین آمیزی دارد که دوستش ندارم. کتاب با این اسم خود را کتابی زرد معرفی میکند ولی کتاب زردی نیست.
December 24, 2024
در کتاب فقر احمق می کند که بر اساس تحقیقات برجسته الدار شفیر و سندهیل مولاینیتن به چاپ رسیده است، ثابت می شود که "فقر" ساختار روانی متمایزی را برای افراد متفاوت در تلاش برای مدیریت بهینه آنچه نیاز دارند ایجاد می کند. افراد پرمشغله به همان دلایلی که افراد فقیر نتوانسته اند پول خود را مدیریت کنند، نمی توانند وقت خود را به طور کارآمد مدیریت کنند. با شروع نگریستن به جهان از دریچه "کمبود منابع" ، مشکلات زندگی مدرن بیشتر به چشم می آیند و کتاب "فقر احمق می کند" نه تنها نشان می دهد که کمبود منابع چگونه ما را محدود می کند بلکه مشخص می سازد که چگونه افراد و سازمان ها می توانند برای رضایت و موفقیت بیشتر منابع را مدیریت کنند.
پی نوشت :فقر در این کتاب به معنی عامینه آن که کمبود مالی است نمی باشد بلکه به معنی کمبود منابع است ، این منابع ممکن است شامل زمان،احساسات،تنهایی و ...باشد.
پی نوشت :فقر در این کتاب به معنی عامینه آن که کمبود مالی است نمی باشد بلکه به معنی کمبود منابع است ، این منابع ممکن است شامل زمان،احساسات،تنهایی و ...باشد.
October 28, 2016
Yawn.
When people are preoccupied with a lack of something, they find it harder to function.
There. I said it. That's the book. That's the whole goddamn book.
Here I was, trying to expand my mind with non-fiction only to confirm that there's more truth and joy to be had in fiction. For me, at least. This book (whose authors are fantastic at TED talks, I'm told) says what it needs to say in the first fifteen pages and drags out its basic, basic concept for the rest. The stories and studies mentioned are interesting, no doubt, but a sincere waste of your time if you understand the idea upfront.
Read the introduction and be done with it.
When people are preoccupied with a lack of something, they find it harder to function.
There. I said it. That's the book. That's the whole goddamn book.
Here I was, trying to expand my mind with non-fiction only to confirm that there's more truth and joy to be had in fiction. For me, at least. This book (whose authors are fantastic at TED talks, I'm told) says what it needs to say in the first fifteen pages and drags out its basic, basic concept for the rest. The stories and studies mentioned are interesting, no doubt, but a sincere waste of your time if you understand the idea upfront.
Read the introduction and be done with it.
Read
September 10, 2019چندتا چیز توی این کتاب بود که دوست داشتم:
اول از همه موضوعش که واقعا خوب پرداخته شده بود. به نظر برای هر کسی که فکر میکنه داره فشار از پا درش میاره خوندن این کتاب ضروریه.
دوم ترجمه اش که خیلی خوب و یکدست بود.
سوم طریقه ی فصل بندی نویسنده ها. انقدر خوب هر بخش رو تموم کرده بودن و بخشی رو به فصل بعدی ننداخته بودن که میشد از هر بخش کامل لذت برد. کتاب رو بست و بهش فکر کرد.
اول از همه موضوعش که واقعا خوب پرداخته شده بود. به نظر برای هر کسی که فکر میکنه داره فشار از پا درش میاره خوندن این کتاب ضروریه.
دوم ترجمه اش که خیلی خوب و یکدست بود.
سوم طریقه ی فصل بندی نویسنده ها. انقدر خوب هر بخش رو تموم کرده بودن و بخشی رو به فصل بعدی ننداخته بودن که میشد از هر بخش کامل لذت برد. کتاب رو بست و بهش فکر کرد.
March 26, 2020
کتابی بسیار جالب با بررسی و دیدی نو به تاثیر مشکلات و دغدغه های انسان بر ذهنش، مطالبی که مسئله های زیادی رو برای شما روشن می سازه.
September 10, 2013
"Scarcity" is one of those books that explains some aspect of the world in a way you hadn't though of before, in an accessible form, and backed by research results. I'd put books like , , and in this category. They stretch your expectations and your perspectives.
In this book, scarcity is considered in a variety of forms, including a lack of wealth (poverty), time (overcommitted), food (hunger) and social contact (loneliness). Through a variety of experiments from a behavioral economic point of view, the authors demonstrate that all of the varieties of scarcity share certain characteristics and that the results manifest themselves in ways that we might not have expected. However, they particularly focus on poverty, with good reason, because it is a form of scarcity that affects both individuals and society the most.
As an example, take the idea of the lack of success of the poor. Are they not successful because they are poor, or are they poor because they are not as capable? Or both? Your answer to that may depend on your worldview or your politics, but it is a question worth asking, because without a solid answer, we have very little basis for finding solutions.
The authors decided to see if someone's level of wealth would affect them intellectually. To do this, they started by giving a random group the scenario: "You car needs $300 in repairs, the insurance will cover half. Would you get it fixed? How would you decide?" and have them talk about that decision. Immediately after this, they were given test of general intelligence (Raven's Progressive Matrices to be exact) - it's an IQ type test. In this case the result was that both poor and prosperous people come out very similar in their results. Their cognitive capabilities were nearly equal.
They then changed the scenario to represent a larger financial hurdle: "You car needs $3000 in repairs, the insurance will cover half. Would you get it fixed? How would you decide?". They presented this to a similar random group of subjects and the results were striking. After that scenario, the poor people performed significantly worse than the prosperous people. How much worse? An equivalent of 12-13 IQ points, or a greater effect than taking the test after being forced to stay up all night with no sleep.
Note that this was at a subconscious level - the scenario is hypothetical in both cases. However, the mere distraction of the scarcity of money causes significant degradation of intellectual functioning. Moreover, the same effect happened when they run a similar test on executive function - that is, self-control and willpower. With the first scenario, no difference between poor and prosperous. With the second, significant differences.
So, what does that tell us? That when we see the poor making choices that are clearly not helping their lives, or performing poorly in educational settings, or getting caught in behaviors that are downward spirals, we need to take into account that there are invisible for significant cognitive deficits that any one of us would be under if we were in the same financial circumstances. These are not character flaws, they are deeply embedded ways that the human brain deals with scarcity. We find similarly irrational behaviors in "successful" people whose scarcity involves lack of time, and not lack of money.
This book is filled with experiments like this and the results, and the authors have done an admirable job conducting them to address some of the possible confounding factors. They also do an excellent job of communicating their work in a readable form. If you want a fantastic lens with which to examine some of the most perplexing questions facing our world today, this book is an excellent choice.
As is usual with books like these, I thought that their "solutions" part of the book was weaker than the discussion. What books like this really spur - and why they are so important when they become popular - are new conversations and thoughts among many people that lead to a shifting of general perception, and ultimately, people using this perspective to find solutions that are far beyond what the authors would have ever dreamed.
[As is usual for my reviews, I try and reserve my 5 star reviews than cause me to rethink something significant in the world that I had taken for granted before. Although it's not perfect, this book fits that descriptions to a tee.]
In this book, scarcity is considered in a variety of forms, including a lack of wealth (poverty), time (overcommitted), food (hunger) and social contact (loneliness). Through a variety of experiments from a behavioral economic point of view, the authors demonstrate that all of the varieties of scarcity share certain characteristics and that the results manifest themselves in ways that we might not have expected. However, they particularly focus on poverty, with good reason, because it is a form of scarcity that affects both individuals and society the most.
As an example, take the idea of the lack of success of the poor. Are they not successful because they are poor, or are they poor because they are not as capable? Or both? Your answer to that may depend on your worldview or your politics, but it is a question worth asking, because without a solid answer, we have very little basis for finding solutions.
The authors decided to see if someone's level of wealth would affect them intellectually. To do this, they started by giving a random group the scenario: "You car needs $300 in repairs, the insurance will cover half. Would you get it fixed? How would you decide?" and have them talk about that decision. Immediately after this, they were given test of general intelligence (Raven's Progressive Matrices to be exact) - it's an IQ type test. In this case the result was that both poor and prosperous people come out very similar in their results. Their cognitive capabilities were nearly equal.
They then changed the scenario to represent a larger financial hurdle: "You car needs $3000 in repairs, the insurance will cover half. Would you get it fixed? How would you decide?". They presented this to a similar random group of subjects and the results were striking. After that scenario, the poor people performed significantly worse than the prosperous people. How much worse? An equivalent of 12-13 IQ points, or a greater effect than taking the test after being forced to stay up all night with no sleep.
Note that this was at a subconscious level - the scenario is hypothetical in both cases. However, the mere distraction of the scarcity of money causes significant degradation of intellectual functioning. Moreover, the same effect happened when they run a similar test on executive function - that is, self-control and willpower. With the first scenario, no difference between poor and prosperous. With the second, significant differences.
So, what does that tell us? That when we see the poor making choices that are clearly not helping their lives, or performing poorly in educational settings, or getting caught in behaviors that are downward spirals, we need to take into account that there are invisible for significant cognitive deficits that any one of us would be under if we were in the same financial circumstances. These are not character flaws, they are deeply embedded ways that the human brain deals with scarcity. We find similarly irrational behaviors in "successful" people whose scarcity involves lack of time, and not lack of money.
This book is filled with experiments like this and the results, and the authors have done an admirable job conducting them to address some of the possible confounding factors. They also do an excellent job of communicating their work in a readable form. If you want a fantastic lens with which to examine some of the most perplexing questions facing our world today, this book is an excellent choice.
As is usual with books like these, I thought that their "solutions" part of the book was weaker than the discussion. What books like this really spur - and why they are so important when they become popular - are new conversations and thoughts among many people that lead to a shifting of general perception, and ultimately, people using this perspective to find solutions that are far beyond what the authors would have ever dreamed.
[As is usual for my reviews, I try and reserve my 5 star reviews than cause me to rethink something significant in the world that I had taken for granted before. Although it's not perfect, this book fits that descriptions to a tee.]
March 25, 2022
This could have been written in an email.
September 12, 2021
کمیابی: چرا بسیار کم داشتن این‌قد� مهم است- (فقر احمق می کند)
کتاب بر پایه اقتصاد رفتاری دیدگاه جدیدی به مسایل حول محور کمیابی دارد به نحوی که وزن کمیابی و آثار آن را به عنوان یک پدیده ذاتی پررنگ می کند. آثاری که هر کسی را تحت تاثیر قرار می هد و در طبیعت، انسان، سازمان و جامعه مشاهده می شود. در هر سه سطح (فرد، سازمان و جامعه) اگر تصمیمی (انتخابی) که میگیریم همراه با کاهش اثرات سوء کمیابی (پهنای باند، تونل زنی و ...) نباشد یا دچار اشتباه شده ایم یا می توان تصمیم (انتخاب) بهتری گرفت.
انواع کمیابی: فقر به عنوان حالت ویژه و فراگیر کمیابی- کمیابی زمان- تنها بودن- گرسنگی
کمیابی توانایی دسترسی به ظرفیت های شناختی ذهن ما را طی فرآیندهای مختلف (تونل زنی � تنگنای پهنای باند- کمبود جای خالی- غفلت- یک گام به عقب- دام کمیابی) تحت تاثیر قرار می دهد.
فرآیندی که رخ میدهد اینگونه است که تاکید تنها بر جنبه ای از کمیابی موجب می شود تصمیمات اشتباه اتخاذ گردد اگر چه در ظاهر کمیابی جای کمتری برای اشتباه کردن است اما عملا فرصت و شرایط بیشتری برای اشتباه فراهم میکند.
در نهایت دیدگاه کمیابی مورد بحث موجب می شود قضاوتمان را نسبت به افراد (خودمان) تغییر داده و با تشخیص اینکه آنها (ما) در دام کمیابی افتاده اند (ایم) دیگر خودشان (خودمان) را مقصر ندانیم و در عوض برای حل مشکلات و مدیریت مسایل تصمیم درستی بگیریم.
بنابر روانشناسی کمیابی قبل از اتخاذ هرگونه تصمیم باید اثری که بر روی ذهن می گذارد شناسایی گردد. مثلا: مدیری که کمبود زمان برای مدیریت کارکنان را دارد باید قبل از انتخاب روش هایی مانند تشویق، آموزش و ... باید به فکر افزایش پهنای باند ذهن خودش باشد که بتواند مشکل را به درستی شناسایی و راه حل را انتخاب کند.
کمیابی شرایط روانی منحصر به فردی را در پی دارد البته در مورد فقر قضیه کمی متفاوت است چرا که فقر انتخابی نیست، متوقف نمی شود و خارج از کنترل است. فقر کمیابی اجباری است و تمام جوانب زندگی را تحت تاثیر قرار میدهد. دو نوع فقر نسبی و فقر مطلق داریم. اولی توسط جامعه ساخته شده مانند نیاز به لوله کشی ساختمان نسبت به صد سال قبل و دومی به نیازهای زیستی برمیگردد.
اگر چه مسایل مربوط به دسترسی، هزینه و مهارت ها در عملکرد فقرا نقش دارند اما این عوامل به تنهایی نمی توانند ناتوانی فقرا را توضیح دهند. مثلا با دادن دارو رایگان به فقرا نمی توان مصرف به موقع انرا تضمین کرد و بخش مهمی از موضوع مشکل رفتار است که تحت تاثیر کمیابی به چالش کشیده می شود.
اگر طراحی مناسب محیط (برنامه، دستورالعمل) می تواند منجر به کاهش خطا شود در مورد فقرا نیز اینگونه است و کمک نمودن به فقرا باید به گونه ای باشد که مثلا پهنای باند آنها را کمتر درگیر کند.
ما از ذهن و جسممان برای زندگی کردن استفاده می کنیم ولی شناخت از جسممان برای چگونه استفاده کردن از ان نسبت به شناخت از ذهنمان بیشتر است و اهمیت زیادی به شناخت ذهنمان نمی دهیم
راهکارها: این که کمیابی اثاری به همراه دارد درست ولی چگونه می توان این اثار را درکنترل قرار داد؟
۱. کارهای مهم و ضروری را برای به نتیجه رسیدن باید داخل تونل برد. ابزاری که می تواند در این زمینه کمک کننده باشد استفاده از یادآورهاست
۲. هدایت غفلت به سوی اهداف مناسب: مثلا غفلت موجب پس انداز شود. قرار دادن مواد غذایی سالم در کابینت آشپزخانه- طرح پس انداز بقیش مال خودت
۳. هشیاری: ترتیبات کارها به گونه ای باشد که نیازمند هشیاری کمتر بوده و چند وقت یک بار دوباره ارزیابی شوند.
راهکارهای مواجهه با کاهش پهنای باند: زمان بندی کارها- تعیین بهترین ترتیبات- وجود دستیار- صرفه جویی در پهنای باند- هشیاری- غفلت- رفع موانع جزیی- مشکل فراوانی اولیه- نیاز به جای خالی و جلوگیری از یک گام به عقب افتادن و مقاوم بودن در برابر شوکها
*شاخص های نامناسب و رکود اقتصاد منجر به رکود شناختی می شود و به صورت بالقوه تمام ابعاد زندگی را تحت تاثیر قرار میدهد.
*جامعه شناسان معمولا جنبه مادی کمیابی مانند فقر، بیکاری، درآمد و .... را مورد بررسی قرار می هند و شناختی از پهنای باند جامعه ندارند.
کتاب بر پایه اقتصاد رفتاری دیدگاه جدیدی به مسایل حول محور کمیابی دارد به نحوی که وزن کمیابی و آثار آن را به عنوان یک پدیده ذاتی پررنگ می کند. آثاری که هر کسی را تحت تاثیر قرار می هد و در طبیعت، انسان، سازمان و جامعه مشاهده می شود. در هر سه سطح (فرد، سازمان و جامعه) اگر تصمیمی (انتخابی) که میگیریم همراه با کاهش اثرات سوء کمیابی (پهنای باند، تونل زنی و ...) نباشد یا دچار اشتباه شده ایم یا می توان تصمیم (انتخاب) بهتری گرفت.
انواع کمیابی: فقر به عنوان حالت ویژه و فراگیر کمیابی- کمیابی زمان- تنها بودن- گرسنگی
کمیابی توانایی دسترسی به ظرفیت های شناختی ذهن ما را طی فرآیندهای مختلف (تونل زنی � تنگنای پهنای باند- کمبود جای خالی- غفلت- یک گام به عقب- دام کمیابی) تحت تاثیر قرار می دهد.
فرآیندی که رخ میدهد اینگونه است که تاکید تنها بر جنبه ای از کمیابی موجب می شود تصمیمات اشتباه اتخاذ گردد اگر چه در ظاهر کمیابی جای کمتری برای اشتباه کردن است اما عملا فرصت و شرایط بیشتری برای اشتباه فراهم میکند.
در نهایت دیدگاه کمیابی مورد بحث موجب می شود قضاوتمان را نسبت به افراد (خودمان) تغییر داده و با تشخیص اینکه آنها (ما) در دام کمیابی افتاده اند (ایم) دیگر خودشان (خودمان) را مقصر ندانیم و در عوض برای حل مشکلات و مدیریت مسایل تصمیم درستی بگیریم.
بنابر روانشناسی کمیابی قبل از اتخاذ هرگونه تصمیم باید اثری که بر روی ذهن می گذارد شناسایی گردد. مثلا: مدیری که کمبود زمان برای مدیریت کارکنان را دارد باید قبل از انتخاب روش هایی مانند تشویق، آموزش و ... باید به فکر افزایش پهنای باند ذهن خودش باشد که بتواند مشکل را به درستی شناسایی و راه حل را انتخاب کند.
کمیابی شرایط روانی منحصر به فردی را در پی دارد البته در مورد فقر قضیه کمی متفاوت است چرا که فقر انتخابی نیست، متوقف نمی شود و خارج از کنترل است. فقر کمیابی اجباری است و تمام جوانب زندگی را تحت تاثیر قرار میدهد. دو نوع فقر نسبی و فقر مطلق داریم. اولی توسط جامعه ساخته شده مانند نیاز به لوله کشی ساختمان نسبت به صد سال قبل و دومی به نیازهای زیستی برمیگردد.
اگر چه مسایل مربوط به دسترسی، هزینه و مهارت ها در عملکرد فقرا نقش دارند اما این عوامل به تنهایی نمی توانند ناتوانی فقرا را توضیح دهند. مثلا با دادن دارو رایگان به فقرا نمی توان مصرف به موقع انرا تضمین کرد و بخش مهمی از موضوع مشکل رفتار است که تحت تاثیر کمیابی به چالش کشیده می شود.
اگر طراحی مناسب محیط (برنامه، دستورالعمل) می تواند منجر به کاهش خطا شود در مورد فقرا نیز اینگونه است و کمک نمودن به فقرا باید به گونه ای باشد که مثلا پهنای باند آنها را کمتر درگیر کند.
ما از ذهن و جسممان برای زندگی کردن استفاده می کنیم ولی شناخت از جسممان برای چگونه استفاده کردن از ان نسبت به شناخت از ذهنمان بیشتر است و اهمیت زیادی به شناخت ذهنمان نمی دهیم
راهکارها: این که کمیابی اثاری به همراه دارد درست ولی چگونه می توان این اثار را درکنترل قرار داد؟
۱. کارهای مهم و ضروری را برای به نتیجه رسیدن باید داخل تونل برد. ابزاری که می تواند در این زمینه کمک کننده باشد استفاده از یادآورهاست
۲. هدایت غفلت به سوی اهداف مناسب: مثلا غفلت موجب پس انداز شود. قرار دادن مواد غذایی سالم در کابینت آشپزخانه- طرح پس انداز بقیش مال خودت
۳. هشیاری: ترتیبات کارها به گونه ای باشد که نیازمند هشیاری کمتر بوده و چند وقت یک بار دوباره ارزیابی شوند.
راهکارهای مواجهه با کاهش پهنای باند: زمان بندی کارها- تعیین بهترین ترتیبات- وجود دستیار- صرفه جویی در پهنای باند- هشیاری- غفلت- رفع موانع جزیی- مشکل فراوانی اولیه- نیاز به جای خالی و جلوگیری از یک گام به عقب افتادن و مقاوم بودن در برابر شوکها
*شاخص های نامناسب و رکود اقتصاد منجر به رکود شناختی می شود و به صورت بالقوه تمام ابعاد زندگی را تحت تاثیر قرار میدهد.
*جامعه شناسان معمولا جنبه مادی کمیابی مانند فقر، بیکاری، درآمد و .... را مورد بررسی قرار می هند و شناختی از پهنای باند جامعه ندارند.
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