RESEARCH_FILE
Sendhil Mullainathan
Harvard University (at the time of the key publications)
Known for:The scarcity research program: how having too little — money or time — changes attention and decision-making
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“If I don't open the bill, it isn't real yet”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“The amount is there whether I read it or not.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Pick up the unopened bill, place it on a clear surface, and open it just far enough to read the amount and due date. Close it again if you want. Do this privately and stop there.
Key findings
- 2012
With Shah and Shafir, showed in Science that scarcity changes how attention is allocated: it produces deeper engagement with the pressing problem while neglecting other ones — attentional shifts that help explain behaviors like overborrowing. Some Consequences of Having Too Little ↗
- 2013
With Mani, Shafir and Zhao, showed that poverty itself taxes cognition: evoking a costly hypothetical financial problem lowered lower-income participants' performance on unrelated reasoning tasks, while an inexpensive version of the same problem did not. Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function ↗