Poverty Mindset Questionnaire – Chinese Version

Description

The concept of “scarcity mindset” refers to a feeling that “having” fails to meet “needs.” This feeling arises when individuals compare the quantity of resources they require with the amount they possess (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2013; Venn & Strazdins, 2017). Typically, addressing real-world problems requires a certain amount of resources; thus, a scarcity mindset develops when individuals recognize that their resources are insufficient for resolving specific issues. This mindset automatically captures individuals’ attention, channeling their cognitive resources toward the scarce items and even alters how they perceive the surrounding world. For instance, lonely individuals may focus more on social information due to a lack of friends, leading to better performance on emotion recognition tasks; hunger increases sensitivity to food-related information, aiding faster and more accurate identification of food-related terms; impoverished children may overestimate the size of a coin, perceiving it as larger than it is (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2013).

The “poverty mindset” is a specific manifestation of the scarcity mindset, characterized by the feeling that “the economic resources one possesses” are insufficient to meet their “needs,” typically summarized as the feeling that “money is tight.” This psychological state is one of the most common among the economically disadvantaged. Due to the scarcity of economic resources and various challenges posed by external environments, a prevalent psychological state or feeling among the poor is the sense of “not enough money.” Currently, poverty presents a serious issue globally and particularly in China. Existing poverty research has primarily focused on family and social factors affecting individual psychological health and cognitive functions. In this context, Haushofer and Fehr (2014) pointed out the necessity for researchers to also focus on issues related to the perpetuation of poverty, which can not only supplement the economic-centric view of poverty but also reveal underlying factors contributing to its chronicity. For example, the behavior patterns of the poor in economic decision-making reflect this. According to the theory of scarcity, people in a state of scarcity primarily occupy their thoughts with the most urgent needs. In this regard, individuals with limited economic resources tend to obsess over money-related concerns, which may lead them to overlook other important issues and make inappropriate decisions. A lack of economic resources generates a poverty mindset, which excessively depletes cognitive resources, leading to poor economic decisions that further exacerbate poverty. This forms a vicious cycle where “poverty leads to more poverty.”

A large body of research has found that the same content can elicit completely different perceptions and judgments solely based on how it is framed, known as the framing effect. Among various forms of the framing effect, the loss-gain framing is one of the most thoroughly studied and widely known. In risk decision-making tasks, people exhibit a higher risk aversion when faced with decisions framed in terms of gains, whereas they show a greater tendency to seek risk when the same decisions are framed in terms of losses (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981). Therefore, when presenting certain decision-making scenarios to the poor (those with a poverty mindset), it’s beneficial to elucidate both the potential gains and losses associated with alternative options, enabling a more comprehensive analysis of the situation and fostering more appropriate decision-making. Additionally, when encouraging the economically disadvantaged to participate in poverty alleviation projects, emphasizing the potential losses of non-participation may enhance their motivation to engage in such initiatives.

Authors and Contact Email

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Purpose

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Test Year

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Administration Method and Scoring

The poverty mindset questionnaire consists of 11 items that measure participants’ feelings of financial inadequacy. Each item uses a 7-point Likert scale, where higher scores indicate a closer alignment of the item description with the participant’s reality. Among the 11 items, 8 are scored positively and 3 negatively. The scores from the 3 negatively phrased items are adjusted in reverse before being summed with the scores of the 8 positively phrased items, and the total is then divided by 11 to obtain each participant’s final poverty mindset score, where a higher score signifies a more severe poverty mindset. In this study, the questionnaire’s internal consistency coefficient Cronbach’s α = .89, meeting research requirements.

Reliability and Validity

Cronbach’s α = .89

Factors and Subscales

Information not available

Keywords

Scarcity mindset, poverty mindset, economic decision-making, framing effect, cognitive resources

Items in Chinese

1. 我经常遇到饯不够用的状况,必须放弃那些不太重要的消费。
2. 购买某些商品后,我经常需要减少其他开销来维持收支平衡。
3. 我的收入和经济状况很好,完全可以满足日常需要。(反)
4. 由于缺钱,家庭的日常消费也会给我带来很大压力。
5. 目前而言,如果我的收入不增加,生活很难维持下去。
6. 我经常有很强的缺钱感,总是感觉钱不够花。
7. 我很少有缺钱的感觉,不需要为钱的问题担心。(反)
8. 由于缺钱,为了养家糊口,我不得不精打细算。
9. 在做一件事之前,我通常最先想到的是花费问题。
10. 家庭的一些意外开支(比如,电器故障需要维修),哪怕数目不大,都会让我感觉很糟糕。
11. 我的经济状况较好,很少感觉有经济压力。(反)

Items in English

1. I often experience situations where I don’t have enough money and have to give up on less essential expenditures.
2. After purchasing certain items, I often need to reduce other expenses to maintain a balance.
3. My income and financial situation are good and can fully meet my daily needs. (reverse)
4. Due to a lack of money, my family’s daily expenses cause me great pressure.
5. Currently, if my income does not increase, it will be hard to maintain my living conditions.
6. I often have a strong feeling of lacking money, always feeling like I don’t have enough to spend.
7. I rarely have a feeling of lacking money and do not worry about financial issues. (reverse)
8. Due to a lack of money, I have to be thrifty to support my family.
9. Before doing something, I usually think first about the costs.
10. Some unexpected family expenses (e.g., appliance repairs) can make me feel terrible, even if the amount is small.
11. My financial situation is good, and I seldom feel financial pressure. (reverse)

References

张彦驰.贫困心态对经济决策的影响及其心理机制[D].华中师范大学,2019.