关键词: 贫困心态, 分析思维, 损益框架, 跨期决策

Abstract: Specific psychological and behavioral patterns formed in poverty environment are important factors that hinder the poor from getting rid of poverty completely. According to scarcity theory, poverty would automatically capture attention of the poor, forcing them to continuously think about financial and cost issues, constantly weigh and compromise between different needs, which ultimately damages their cognitive function and executive control ability. When individuals use a large amount of psychological resources to regulate emotions and manage scarce economic resources, the psychological resources that he can use to initiate analytical thinking to deal with other tasks will be insufficient, causing them to rely on intuitive thinking during solving problems. Studies have found that reduced analytical thinking or relying on intuitive thinking would increase the time discount rate for intertemporal decision-making. Therefore, we can infer that poverty mindset would affect intertemporal decision-making by reducing the individual's analytical thinking. Individuals who rely on intuitive thinking to make decisions are more susceptible to framework, and the use of analytical thinking can effectively reduce the framing effect. Based on this, it can be inferred that loss-gain frame may regulate the relationship between poverty mindset and intertemporal decision-making. Two studies were conducted to explore the impact of poverty mindset on intertemporal decision-making, the mediation effect of analytical thinking and the moderation effect of loss-gain frame. Study 1 recruited 197 adults and manipulated the poverty mindset (yes vs. no) and frame (loss vs. gain). A multiple-choice question, asking participants whether they can raise a lot of money in a short period of time to deal with emergencies, and a short-answer question, requiring participants to write down 2 to 3 wishes that were difficult to realize due to lack of money, were used to induce poverty mindset. Loss-gain frame was manipulated through changing the expression of intertemporal decision-making tasks. The results showed that the interaction effect between poverty mindset and loss-gain frame was significant: poverty mindset significantly increased participants’ time discount rate under gain frame; poverty mindset had no significant effect on the time discount rate under loss frame. In study 2，we developed a poverty mindset questionnaire consisting of 12 items, and recruited 398 adults. All participants completed the poverty mindset questionnaire (measuring poverty mindset), the cognitive reflection test (CRT, measuring analytical thinking), the loss or gain frame intertemporal decision-making (measuring time discount rate). We analyzed the mediation effect of analytical thinking and moderation effect of loss-gain frame via SPSS macro PROCESS. Results were as follows: (1) poverty mindset significantly reduced analytical thinking; (2) analytical thinking played a mediating role between poverty mindset and intertemporal decision-making; (3) the mediating effect of analytical thinking was moderated by loss-gain frame. Analytical thinking, under gain frame, has a predictive effect on intertemporal decision-making. However, under the loss framework, analytical thinking has no predictive effect on intertemporal decision-making. The two studies consistently show that loss-gain frame has a moderating effect on the relationship between poverty mindset and intertemporal decision-making, suggesting that the proper use of the loss-gain frame may be an effective way to reduce the time discount rate of the poor. In addition, analytical thinking mediates the impact of poverty mindset on intertemporal decision-making, poverty mindset impairs the analytical thinking, which in turn leads to an increase in the time discount rate. During formulation and implementation of anti-poverty policies, the government should pay attention to the impairment of analytical thinking due to poverty mindset, and help the poor get rid of behavioral poverty traps by reducing their cognitive burden and improving their analytical thinking.

Key words: poverty mindset, analytical thinking, loss-gain frame, intertemporal decision-making