The duality of poverty: a replication of Mani et al. (2013) in Colombia

Abstract

Scarcity acts as a mental burden that disrupts how people process information and make decisions (Mullainathan and Shafir in Scarcity: Why having too little means so much. Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2013; Mani et al. Science 342:976–980, 2013). In this study, we replicated Mani et al.’s (Science 342:976–980, 2013) experimental design to explore whether scarcity also taxes Colombian high school students’ mental bandwidth. In a lab-in-the-field experiment, we tested how 417 high school students from high and low socioeconomic status (SES) in Bogotá, Colombia, responded to different scarcity situations. Students were first presented with hypothetical scenarios of harsh or soft scarcity. Next, participants had to solve a series of tasks that measured higher cognitive functions (i.e. Raven’s Progressive Matrices, Cognitive Reflection Task and questions to assess their Delay Discounting value) and had to explain how they would solve the scarcity situation. As opposed to Mani et al. (Science 342:976–980, 2013), we did not find that scarcity taxed individuals’ mental bandwidth, neither their cognitive nor executive functions. We found that low-SES individuals, under the harsh scarcity condition, displayed more empathic attributes than high-SES individuals. Taken together, the results of this study show the importance of replication in different cultures and environments.

Appendices

Appendix A

Harsh condition hypothetical situation

Please focus and imagine that this situation happened earlier today.

A friend of yours just bought an expensive cellphone he has not used yet. At lunchtime, you ask him to lend you the cellphone to browse its functionalities. While looking at it, because of your carelessness, the cellphone falls to the ground. All your friends, including the owner, see the situation. When you pick up the cellphone, the screen is broken and the phone does not turn on. Your friend tells you that you must bring him the cellphone fixed within 2 days. You keep the cellphone, and when consulting the price of its repair, they tell you it costs $300.000 COP.

Remember this happened earlier today and you must get the money within 2 days. While you are answering the test, think of how you are going to get $300.000 COP in 2 days. Think about ways to do it using your real resources.

Appendix B

Soft condition hypothetical situation

Please focus and imagine that this situation happened earlier today.

A friend of yours just bought a notebook he has not used yet. At lunchtime, you ask him to lend you the notebook to see the cover design. While looking at it, because of your carelessness, the notebook falls into a puddle. All your friends, including the owner, see the situation. When you pick up the notebook, all the sheets are wet. Your friend tells you that you must bring him a new notebook within 2 days. You keep the notebook, and when you ask for a new one in a stationery, they tell you it costs $1.000 COP.

Remember this happened earlier today and you must get the money within 2 days. While you are answering the test, think of how you are going to get $1.000 COP in 2 days. Think about ways to do it using your real resources.

Appendix C

Cognitive reflective task (CRT) questions

• 1. If it takes 5 machines 5 min to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? _____ min.

• 2. How many cubic feet of dirt are there in a hole that is 3’ deep × 3’ wide × 3’ long?

• 3. A farmer had 15 sheep and all but 8 died. How many are left?

Appendix D

Discounting coefficient questions

Mark with an (X) or circle your answer.

• 1. A travel agency will give you a 30-day trip all included to the destination of your choice in 2 weeks. Then, they offer you the possibility of giving you the tickets today but with fewer travel days. How many travel days are you willing to accept today, instead of waiting 2 weeks for the 30-day travel?

  3 days 6 days 9 days 12 days 15 days 18 days 21 days 24 days 27 days 30 days

• 2. A travel agency will give you a 30-day trip all included to the destination of your choice in 1 month. Then, they offer you the possibility of giving you the tickets today but with fewer travel days. How many travel days are you willing to accept today, instead of waiting 1 month for the 30-day travel?

  3 days 6 days 9 days 12 days 15 days 18 days 21 days 24 days 27 days 30 days

• 3. A travel agency will give you a 30-day trip all included to the destination of your choice in 3 months. Then, they offer you the possibility of giving you the tickets today but with fewer travel days. How many travel days are you willing to accept today, instead of waiting 3 months for the 30-day travel?

  3 days 6 days 9 days 12 days 15 days 18 days 21 days 24 days 27 days 30 days

• 4. A travel agency will give you a 30-day trip all included to the destination of your choice in 6 months. Then, they offer you the possibility of giving you the tickets today but with fewer travel days. How many travel days are you willing to accept today, instead of waiting 6 months for the 30-day travel?

  3 days 6 days 9 days 12 days 15 days 18 days 21 days 24 days 27 days 30 days

• 5. A travel agency will give you a 30-day trip all included to the destination of your choice in 1 year. Then, they offer you the possibility of giving you the tickets today but with fewer travel days. How many travel days are you willing to accept today, instead of waiting 1 year for the 30-day travel?

  3 days 6 days 9 days 12 days 15 days 18 days 21 days 24 days 27 days 30 days

Appendix E

Qualitative response and their category assignment examples

Subject with ID 256 responded:

“After breaking accidently the cellphone, I would get home, tell the situation to my mother and grandma, I would bear the scolding and

the possible ground. I would get the money from my savings and in case these are not sufficient I would talk with my grandma so that she could lend me the money and I would go ahead and fix the cellphone.”

This response has the following codification.

Category	Number of solutions to the problem	Effectiveness of the solution to the problem	Network support in the solution to the problem	Read other’s affective or mental state
Codification	1	1	1	1
Explanation	The subject reports only one way to get the money (by taking money from his savings and if necessary with his grandmothers money)	The response is plausible and realistic	To get the money he gets support from his reference network (in this case his grandmother)	While mentioning they could scold and ground him, he acknowledges the reactions and emotions of his mother and grandmother

Subject with ID 50 responded:

“With the money that my parents give me for recess, I would save 500COP one day and I would buy something else with the leftover money. At the next day I would save another 500COP and, like that, I would pay for mi friend’s notebook”.

This response has the following codification.

Category	Number of solutions to the problem	Effectiveness of the solution to the problem	Network support in the solution to the problem	Read other’s affective or mental state
Codification	1	1	1	0
Explanation	The subject reports only one way to get the money (by saving 500COP per day)	The response is plausible and realistic	To get the money he gets support from his reference network (in this case his parents)	He does not acknowledge the reactions, emotions or thoughts of others

Subject with ID 294 responded:

“I would obviously be working and as I am a person who saves money I would have it available to fix the cellphone that same day and give it to him on time”.

This response has the following codification.

Category	Number of solutions to the problem	Effectiveness of the solution to the problem	Network support in the solution to the problem	Read other’s affective or mental state
Codification	1	1	0	0
Explanation	The subject reports only one way to get the money (getting money from his savings)	The response is plausible and realistic	To get the money he does not support himself with his reference network to get the money	He does not acknowledge the reactions, emotions or thoughts of others

Appendix F

Experimenter protocol

7.1 Computer-based application

7.1.1 Materials

• Cards with number 1 and number 2 (× 30 each, respectively).

• Application protocol and basic data format (for the researcher).

• Stopwatch (can be the cell phone).

7.1.2 Procedure

Before proceeding, they must verify that the internet connection is sufficient (results are uploaded to the cloud and the images are uploaded). If so, proceed to open the trial link found in your email.

When students approach the application room: (1) they receive the informed consents signed by their guardian (without this they will not be able to solve the test); (2) give each a letter, making sure they are interleaved (the first will receive letter 1, the second letter 2, the third letter 3 and so on and (3) assign the computers (make sure that there will only be one person per computer). When they are settled, do not allow them to answer the test before you tell them to.

When everyone is settled say the following instruction: “Hi guys. Before beginning, you cannot have cell phones available (please put them on silence), and cannot communicate with other colleagues or consult other internet pages. Please read carefully what is on the screen and answer the questions. Any doubts raise your hand and I will go over to where you are. At one point in the test you will find the instruction “WAIT for the experimenter’s signal to continue with the test.”. Please do not move anything and wait for my signalling. Any questions you have about what you see on the screen or about the procedure do not hesitate to ask me. Questions?” If no one asks or fully answers all the previous inquiries, you can say “Start”.

In the application, be careful that they comply with the instructions and be in an open disposition to solve all the doubts they have.

When everyone gets to the Raven quiz, make sure they’re in the same window, ready to start it. When this is the case, tell them “In the next part you will find a series of images with a cut section, you must select from the options given the one that fits the image. They will have 15 min from my order”. When the time is up, tell the students to scroll down to the bottom of the page to continue with the test.

Make sure they complete the rest of the tests. When they finish it and they call you, you can thank them and tell them to come back to your classroom. When the computer is idle and you are no longer going to apply any tests, continue to close the page and your email session, leave the computer as you received it.

NOTE: You cannot leave the room until all students have completed everything.

NOTE 2: Fill in the basic data format.

7.2 Paper application

7.2.1 Materials

• Application protocol and basic data format (for the researcher).

• Stopwatch (can be the cell phone).

• Shortage format tests.

• Testing without the question of scarcity.

• Neutral format tests.

• App of raven matrices.

• Raven matrices answer sheet.

When you get to the room, explain to the participants what their participation consists of, make it clear that cell phones, iPods, etc. are not allowed, and that they need to be silent during the application. Once everyone has it clear, proceed to distribute the material. Each participant must have a test, an application of the raven matrices and an answer sheet, that is, three formats in total. Make sure one third of the course has a test with the harsh scarcity format, another third has a test with the soft scarcity format, and the other third has the test without the scarcity question. When you deliver the Raven matrix application, emphasize that it cannot be scratched, and that it must be delivered in the condition in which it was received. (For greater clarity, refer to the instruction of the virtual application).

Once the conditions are clear, give the instruction to begin. When they begin, tell the participants that they must wait for their instruction to start the Raven matrix application, once all the participants have read the scarcity question (and those who do not have it must wait), give the instruction to start the test of Raven and time 15 min, once the 15 min have passed, tell the participants that they should stop and continue with the original test, make sure everyone stops, if necessary collect the answer sheets.

After the raven matrices, all the participants can take the time necessary to answer the entire test, those who finish can leave the room, if it is not possible, ensure that the place is silent, once you collect all the tests thank them for their time and leave the room.

Appendix G

Mani et al. (2013) in their supplementary materials, report some analysis of responses to scenarios in their first experiment. They coded the number of options considered if the participant showed tradeoff thinking and the number of words in the response. As showed in Table 3, we also coded the number of solutions and we also counted the number of words of our participants’ responses. Table 5 shows the average of these values (standard deviations in parenthesis).

Appendix H

See Table 6

Table 6 Linear probability models predicting considering others’ affective or mental state in the harsh and soft conditions considering the INSE score as a continuous variable

.

Appendix I

Following McKenzie’s (2015, February 04) argument, we decided to run a complementary analysis. We tested for joint orthogonality by running a linear probability model where the dependent variable is pertaining, or not, to a primed group. In other words, we wanted to see if any observable variable was significant in the probability of being assigned to the harsh or soft condition. As seen in Table 7, we can see that the variables are jointly unrelated (F(7,273) = 1.037, p = 0.41) to the probability of belonging to any of the primed treatment groups.

Table 7 Linear probability models predicting considering others’ affective or mental state in the harsh and soft conditions considering the INSE score as a continuous variable