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impoverishment (subjective poverty). As Banergee and Duflo (2011) state in “Poor
Economics,” it is relatively easy for rich people to satisfy their desires compared to the poor.
(Figure 1) Poverty Trap (Banerjee & Duflo, 2011)
In fact, the rich and the poor react differently to temptation. If sweet tea is a typical
tempting good, rich people generally do not feel much difficulty dealing with their temptation.
It does not mean that they are not tempted to drink sweet tea; it means that because they have
enough money, they are not worried about a small reduction in their hard-earned wealth from
just drinking several more cups of tea. On the other hand, poor people without enough money
in hand are more affected by such temptations.
When it comes to making decisions on whether or not to save money, rich people assume
that the money they saved for the future will be used as intended. The same is not true of poor
people. Struggling to make ends meet, poor people cannot afford to save. While the rich can
have money automatically withdrawn from their bank accounts when they want to increase
savings, the poor cannot use such systems because they don't have enough money. Poor
people thus must practice self-restraint when they save. The problem is, self-restraint is like a
muscle. Every time poor people save money, they feel stressed and make decisions even
more impulsively because of cortisol, a hormone released in the cortex of the adrenal gland
(Banergee & Duflo, 2011: 72). Poor people end up getting trapped in a vicious cycle of
poverty, repeating impulsive and irrational choices.
What is commonly found in the models explaining irrational choices and behaviors of
individuals is the weakening of self-control that leans towards instant gratification. Selfcontrol
can be defined as “the choice of a larger, more delayed gratification over a smaller,
sooner gratification,” and impulsiveness can be defined as the opposite (Kirk & Logue, 1996).
All things being equal, poor people show a high degree of impatience, pay attention to
peripheral routes, and tend to make impulsive decisions. Due to these features, they show
weak self-control (Mullainathan & Shafir, 2010; Hall, 2008; Bertrand et al., 2004).