experimental studies on poverty and imprisonment

[mentalslavery]

Upon the request of a fellow du poster bobolink I am posting some of the findings of a 4 trial experimental study I conducted on myself in the late nineties when I was an undergrad. After much thought, I have decided to cut the methods section out of this post. The reason is that replication of these experiments should not be attempted.

Therefore I am posting only the physical and psychological effects (findings) as well as a short theoretical section that could provide some possible explanations as the effects.

For those with an advanced understanding of the effects of poverty on psych/phys, read on

For those are not familiar with some of the basic research findings in this area. These are some links that will "get you up to speed". These two sites cover a wide array of issues that pertain to the topic and are attainable for the average reader.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060206171449.htm

http://www.masspsychologist.com/leading/0506_ne_cover_study.html


Findings (simulation of some of the negative effects of poverty and imprisonment):
At first (24 hours without food, water, and light), it is the hunger pain that we all feel when it is time to eat. This pain roughly doubles in severity and slowly turns to a mild ill feeling, anxiety (body shaking and the urge to walk or move in some way), headaches, dry eyes and lips, erratic body temp that swings from hot to cold, and a lack of energy and strength. Naturally, I did not suffer extreme hunger as I only went 42 hours without food and water, but I did experience a stage beyond the "normal hunger". This stage was characterized by a recession in hunger pain followed by a hollow feeling similar to the feeling of losing your ability to feel your belly. This change occurred after about a day and a half without food. I had never experienced the sensation where I felt as if I could not feel a part of my internal organs. Until this experiment, I never realized how in-tune we are with our internal organs. We don't often realize, or think about the fact, that we do feel our internal organs. They have a "normal feeling", this is when we are feeling in good health, and subsequently when all feeling disappears, it is a disturbing event. Earlier I mentioned that I had two opposite physical symptoms, the urge to move coupled with a lack of energy and strength. This was a strange experience because I wanted to move but was too tired to do much (as well as confined by space limitations). Usually, when a person is tired they don't want to move, but I had a version of cabin fever mixed with malnutrition. It is my belief that the body shakes were, in part, do to the opposite effects of cabin fever and mild malnutrition and not exclusive a physical determinate.


At the 42 hour mark (no light, water, or food), I lost my ability to think clearly as well as control my actions. My vision was not accurate in terms of time and distance capabilities. At times I would laugh uncontrollably and then become melancholy and mentally "spacey". When you have not slept well (average 4 hours a day) and can not eat, you will experience time periods that are similar to being drunk. This includes the physical tingling and nausea associated with too much alcohol consumption and is roughly as severe as 2 shots of alcohol takin at the same time.

Prolonged time periods without light actual decrease a persons ability to sleep. If a person is trapped in the dark, they lose a sense of time. As I began to lose my sense of time I could not sleep. I was not able to decipher how long I had been asleep as I was lacking the typical "sign-post" such as clocks and sun rotation that aid in our ability to understand the passage of time. Additionally, light makes us tired. Think about the strain that you experience when looking at something bright and the relative ease of twilight. Light is on a continuum and our exposure throughout the course of the day affects "relative energy". Any strain such as exercise, light, reading, etc compounds throughout the day and results in your relative lack of energy towards the end of the day. With this being said it is important to recognized that prolonged periods (over 24 hours) in the dark will lead to decreased energy as well as an inability to sleep. The inability to sleep is not just a result of the disabled time recognition but is also due to the fact that light is necessary for activity. So, you are sleeping less and doing almost nothing, this confuses the body. On a physical level the body is trying to fix, make adjustments, for the environmental changes that are occurring. We have all experienced one of those sleepless nights where we toss and turn in bed, are physically tired, but can not sleep. Lack of adequate food, water, and light creates an existence similar to one of these sleep-less nights. Next time you pass a homeless person, or street child, who appears to be intoxicated on a drug; it is possible that their "state" is the result of these effects and not intoxicants.


As you can imagine, this existence (prolonged periods of food, water, and light deprivation) is strainful. It leads to anger, depression, attribution bias (perceptions that are not accurate and tend to conclude negative stimulus from others or situations), anxiety, and personality disorders. In terms of personality disorders, while biological and genetic traits are significant, theses traits are influenced by environmental stimulus's that occur during the formative process and well into the life-course. My simulation sped up the effects that are compounded by long term poverty as the impoverished are subjected to similar time periods without light, food, and water. For example, I spent some time experimenting with voluntary homelessness. I lived on the streets, slept on the streets (or under them), and obtained resources via methods established by the homeless community (not the method of this study, but a different one-will post findings in a separate post). One notable structural issue was the effect of season on light. During winter months, I had to spend a lot of time underground, using the city infrastructure (usually lower wacker drive in chicago before the gentrification of the by-pass) to stay warm. To obtain food, it was important to work at night. For long periods of time, I never saw day light. Additionally I never knew as I awoke, whether it was day or night, therefore "climbing to the top" was a gamble. If you come out during the day, you increase your chances of arrest, especially during the rush hour time periods. "Escaping" at night is much more reliable. The same is true for entering.

For those in high-rise affordable housing structures, internal apartments do not have windows, therefore utility loss leads to increased "dark living". While candles and other forms of light are commonly available, issues of saving money by "cutting to the bone", fire potentials and pressure from neighborhoods both tend to lead to semi-forced light deprivation. Of course, if you can keep your lights on, food and clean water issues are also prevalent. A significant proportion of the urban poor experience these situations on a multi-annual basis.

General strain theory tends to be the most applicable theoretical explanation, but I would also argue, that learning and differential association are also important for a more complete understanding. GST suggested that there are three basic strains, denial of a desired stimulus, threats to a desired stimulus, and the presents of a noxious stimulus. Examples are as such; Denial of a desired stimulus would be "that A you studied so hard for but received a lessor grade", threats to a desired stimulus would be "the teacher reminding you that one more absence will make an A impossible", and presents of a noxious stimulus would be "the teacher asking something unreasonable of a student on a moral or cognitive level as a means of obtaining an A". The most common relationship according to research is increased levels of depression, anxiety, and aggressive behavior. Of course, each type has certain responses that are more likely than others. Studying but not achieving high marks would likely manifest itself in depression over anxiety and aggression. The threat of an absence as blocking a goal would likely manifest itself in anxiety over depression and aggression. An authority figure who is requesting or demanding unreasonable and amoral things would likely manifest itself in aggression over depression and anxiety. Naturally, these are trends that are true for the group and will vary by individual.

HOWEVER

We are habitual in our behavior and habits are very easily obtained, especially destructive ones. The poor are social learners (like the rest of us), and their learning opportunities are largely determined/influenced by differential associations (in this case-class based networks). Therefore behavior that might originate for reasons of strain could likely become integrated into personality traits during a life-course of both learned responses to situational and interactional stimulus as well as strainful environments. The argument here advocates an understanding and conceptualization of these dynamics as intervening variables and interactive in regression modeling or structural equations. It is likely that they are ultimately co-linear to a high level of complexity not captured in our research methods or analysis practices.

If you enjoy this type of reading I will be posting the findings of some studies conducted in 00-02 on voluntary urban homelessness under the title-"experiments in voluntary urban homeless" in the poverty forum. This study focus's on the interactional and relational experiences of the urban poor and homeless with middle and upper-middle class populations as well as social institutions.