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fMRI results show that children from lower-SES backgrounds are less stimulated by monetary rewards. "The findings suggest that lower SES circumstances may prom

fMRI results show that children from lower-SES backgrounds are less stimulated by monetary rewards. "The findings suggest that lower SES circumstances may prompt the brain to adapt to the environment..." Wow! How did they control for the possibility that a heritable reward-focus in the parents leads to the SES results? Or that other factors, such as higher engagement or game-competence, might have led to this result? The story doesn't say, but if someone could post the relevant discussion from the journal article, I'd be interested in seeing it. I'm sure it's there.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
PeterisP 3y ago
They obviously didn't, and didn't need to - that sentence is not making any assertion, it is suggesting a hypothesis that can be tested in future work by them or others. The sole assertion this study is making is about the existence of the effect, and it is only speculating (and not hiding that it's speculating) about a possible mechanism causing that effect. And obviously further details relating to this observation aren't already tested and published, it would take at least a few months for that to happen - if someone had already done and published a follow-up analysis, this article wouldn't be news but be outdated already.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  I agree that that sentence didn't, but further down in the article stronger claims are made, sometimes obliquely referencing prior work. So it would be interesting to see the original paper to see what they cite as supporting evidence for this hypothesis. Obviously this is something that can be controlled somewhat with the appropriate selection of subjects (there are a variety of families that have experienced generational rags-to-riches or riches-to-rags, for example). Though the N in those cases is likely to be smaller.
  - PeterisP 3y ago
    I think a problem is that this press release is mixing content from the scientific study with an interview of experts talking about it, and the colloquial assertions made in that conversation happen to have a bunch of extra speculation that isn't part of the study they discuss; for half of the press release the "standard of evidence" is like in science and for the other half it is like in this HN discussion thread, where people do rise many interesting (and possibly true) hypotheses where we don't have any evidence (yet).
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      I agree.
- itronitron 3y ago
  A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, say no more, say no more!
- roenxi 3y ago
  And, indeed, makes for some rather interesting follow up questions... * Is this genuinely just a different way of processing rewards? * Do low SES children not understand that money is a reward? * Is there a capability gap at playing games? Or different responses to games themselves? I don't think it makes intuitive sense that limited rewards leads to a lower response, so my guess is low SES children probably have a different relationship with money. My observation has been, in a weird but important way, that only a subset of high SES families seem to treat money as a desirable thing. Most people seem to have a what I see as a complex love-hate-contempt relationship with money. There isn't conclusive evidence in the article though.
  - hmcq6 3y ago
    "* Do low SES children not understand that money is a reward?" As in they're stupid? How would they not understand it's a reward. "* Is there a capability gap at playing games? Or different responses to games themselves?" From the article - "Unbeknownst to the participants, the game was set up to control whether the guess would be correct or incorrect." So no... that's not a possibility
    - roenxi 3y ago
      > As in they're stupid? How would they not understand it's a reward. A lot of people, if you give them a dollar they'll try to spend it on something. And that, counterintuitively, means they don't see the dollar as a reward. Someone who sees the dollar as a reward will put the dollar on their pile of dollars and then feel good because they have a dollar. The dollar, in itself, is the reward. If someone is dirt poor, I assume they don't have a habit of seeing money as the end in itself.
      - hmcq6 3y ago
        "A lot of people, if you give them a dollar they'll try to spend it on something. And that, counterintuitively, means they don't see the dollar as a reward." I think Homer already deconstructed your argument, no not that Homer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A81DYZh6KaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A81DYZh6KaQ But the question is, how can you attribute that behavior to the poor kids only if there is no mention of it in the study or article? Undoubtably some number of both the poor and rich kids are going to want to buy something with the money. Buried in your assumption is the assumption that poor kids are less likely to try to save money or that they don't see financial stability as rewarding. And, in my opinion, the fact that the reward center of all the kids brains lit up fundamentally contradicts your central point. The poor kids did see the money as a reward for correctly guessing the answer in the game.
nostromo 3y ago
Most of an individual's intelligence is inherited from their parents, and that's been proven multiple times with large-scale studies of adopted twins. It wouldn't surprise me if reward response was similar. But it's unlikely we'll make any advancements in our understanding of genes and intelligence or behavior, because this kind of research is out-of-favor and almost impossible to fund now.
- Avicebron 3y ago
  Well, I think the issue isn't the research exactly, it's the motivations behind doing the research. Like, if it was determined tomorrow, with a huge article in nature or another journal that's suitably popular/prestigious that intelligence (and rewards for the sake of this thread) is totally inherited or even 80% inherited, what material changes would you want/expect to see in society in relation to that news.
  - nostromo 3y ago
    Because you end up with bad science, like (potentially) the study posted here. If you refuse to consider the role of genetics, then everything is going to look like environmental impacts. This has a real impact on policy and investment, because we waste time on money on programs that have no chance of success. Trying to remain ignorant isn't going to help us here, even if we have good intentions.
    - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
      > because we waste time on money on programs that have no chance of success. And presumably learn from it. While wasting a lot of money and effort (and people) on programs that won't work isn't good, neither is not trying because the effect is presumed, pre hoc, to be small or non-existent. We live in a world where most people aren't enabled to achieve their potential. Figuring out that extrinsic rewards don't work to motivate behavioral changes or achievement for some people of a certain category, regardless of why, will hopefully result in the testing of other non-extrinsic-reward interventions that may work to motivate.
dusted 3y ago
This was my thought too, ofc. it's not a popular idea these days that genetics and heredity might have some bearing on success, but it does seem worthwhile looking into.. Anecdote time, I identified the reward-seeking behaviour in my peers in early childhood and didn't understand it, I felt they were acting like dogs, being overtly manipulated to do what the grownups wanted, and I felt disgusted with the idea. (I was not an easy child, but then again, I grew up to be a rather disagreeable adult) I come from a fairly normal lower middle-class family, but was consistently rewarded, except my response to praise and reward was mostly negative, and to some degree still is. I'm pretty sure my father was the same way, he'd do stuff for their own sake and his own sake, not because someone rewarded him for it. Unsurprisingly, taking into account how much potential I've been told I have, I'm a relatively low achiever, I'm simply not attracted to reward or winning very much, except maybe winning for its own sake, which just seems dumb.
- LtWorf 3y ago
  Looking into? Sure! Claiming that it's already established science when it absolutely isn't however…
  - unwise-exe 3y ago
    We know for a fact that genetics has a large influence on intelligence. We know for a fact that genetics has a large influence on personality. . We know for a fact that (at scale*) intelligence is the single largest influence on success. IIRC, we're pretty sure that (at scale*) personality is the second largest influence on success. I.e., if you measure all the possible things that might influence success and run a principal component analysis, intelligence is the first component and personality the second. * Nepotism and such exist, but extreme cases are actually not that common. . It should not be controversial to acknowledge both part A and part B at the same time.
    - LtWorf 3y ago
      No we don't know for a fact any of these things.
jojobas 3y ago
>the possibility that a heritable reward-focus in the parents leads to the SES results This would imply that the problem with poor people lies within themselves rather than the society, which is an unacceptable proposition.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > which is an unacceptable proposition Why?
  - hmcq6 3y ago
    Well first of all its circular logic. They're dumb because they're poor <-> They're poor because they're dumb. Setting aside my moral issues with the idea of Economic Phrenology I think this is an acceptable checkpoint to stop at when trying to reason out an answer. Feel free to stop, look around stretch out your legs. And then get back on that train of thought and take it to the end. Why are they poor? There's the circular logic argument of "well cuz they're dumb" but that ignores generational wealth, the gender wage gap, systemic inequality, luck, economics, and just a general lack of equity of opportunity. Some people smart people choose low paying jobs because it brings them a fulfillment money cant. Some dumb people get rich off the lottery. And like... We've all seen rich peoples kids. They're not all geniuses. It's just not a coherent belief. It is demonstrably not true.
    - Gibbon1 3y ago
      I remember high school, coach organized a wrestling match played out over a week. You had 32 matches. The winners competed in 16 matches. The winners of that competed in 8 matches. Then 4 matches, then 2 matches then the final match. When you've built an economic system that distributes wealth that way you can't cast moral aspersions on the losers. Because that's what it does, creates losers by design.
      - jojobas 3y ago
        There's repechage, and there's plenty of repechage in life. At the same time, yes life is not fair, and that's not really a property of the economic system anyone built.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

PeterisP 3y ago

They obviously didn't, and didn't need to - that sentence is not making any assertion, it is suggesting a hypothesis that can be tested in future work by them or others. The sole assertion this study is making is about the existence of the effect, and it is only speculating (and not hiding that it's speculating) about a possible mechanism causing that effect. And obviously further details relating to this observation aren't already tested and published, it would take at least a few months for that to happen - if someone had already done and published a follow-up analysis, this article wouldn't be news but be outdated already.

anonymouskimmer 3y ago
I agree that that sentence didn't, but further down in the article stronger claims are made, sometimes obliquely referencing prior work. So it would be interesting to see the original paper to see what they cite as supporting evidence for this hypothesis. Obviously this is something that can be controlled somewhat with the appropriate selection of subjects (there are a variety of families that have experienced generational rags-to-riches or riches-to-rags, for example). Though the N in those cases is likely to be smaller.
- PeterisP 3y ago
  I think a problem is that this press release is mixing content from the scientific study with an interview of experts talking about it, and the colloquial assertions made in that conversation happen to have a bunch of extra speculation that isn't part of the study they discuss; for half of the press release the "standard of evidence" is like in science and for the other half it is like in this HN discussion thread, where people do rise many interesting (and possibly true) hypotheses where we don't have any evidence (yet).
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    I agree.
itronitron 3y ago
A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, say no more, say no more!
roenxi 3y ago
And, indeed, makes for some rather interesting follow up questions... * Is this genuinely just a different way of processing rewards? * Do low SES children not understand that money is a reward? * Is there a capability gap at playing games? Or different responses to games themselves? I don't think it makes intuitive sense that limited rewards leads to a lower response, so my guess is low SES children probably have a different relationship with money. My observation has been, in a weird but important way, that only a subset of high SES families seem to treat money as a desirable thing. Most people seem to have a what I see as a complex love-hate-contempt relationship with money. There isn't conclusive evidence in the article though.
- hmcq6 3y ago
  "* Do low SES children not understand that money is a reward?" As in they're stupid? How would they not understand it's a reward. "* Is there a capability gap at playing games? Or different responses to games themselves?" From the article - "Unbeknownst to the participants, the game was set up to control whether the guess would be correct or incorrect." So no... that's not a possibility
  - roenxi 3y ago
    > As in they're stupid? How would they not understand it's a reward. A lot of people, if you give them a dollar they'll try to spend it on something. And that, counterintuitively, means they don't see the dollar as a reward. Someone who sees the dollar as a reward will put the dollar on their pile of dollars and then feel good because they have a dollar. The dollar, in itself, is the reward. If someone is dirt poor, I assume they don't have a habit of seeing money as the end in itself.
    - hmcq6 3y ago
      "A lot of people, if you give them a dollar they'll try to spend it on something. And that, counterintuitively, means they don't see the dollar as a reward." I think Homer already deconstructed your argument, no not that Homer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A81DYZh6KaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A81DYZh6KaQ But the question is, how can you attribute that behavior to the poor kids only if there is no mention of it in the study or article? Undoubtably some number of both the poor and rich kids are going to want to buy something with the money. Buried in your assumption is the assumption that poor kids are less likely to try to save money or that they don't see financial stability as rewarding. And, in my opinion, the fact that the reward center of all the kids brains lit up fundamentally contradicts your central point. The poor kids did see the money as a reward for correctly guessing the answer in the game.

nostromo 3y ago

Most of an individual's intelligence is inherited from their parents, and that's been proven multiple times with large-scale studies of adopted twins. It wouldn't surprise me if reward response was similar. But it's unlikely we'll make any advancements in our understanding of genes and intelligence or behavior, because this kind of research is out-of-favor and almost impossible to fund now.

Avicebron 3y ago
Well, I think the issue isn't the research exactly, it's the motivations behind doing the research. Like, if it was determined tomorrow, with a huge article in nature or another journal that's suitably popular/prestigious that intelligence (and rewards for the sake of this thread) is totally inherited or even 80% inherited, what material changes would you want/expect to see in society in relation to that news.
- nostromo 3y ago
  Because you end up with bad science, like (potentially) the study posted here. If you refuse to consider the role of genetics, then everything is going to look like environmental impacts. This has a real impact on policy and investment, because we waste time on money on programs that have no chance of success. Trying to remain ignorant isn't going to help us here, even if we have good intentions.
  - anonymouskimmer 3y ago
    > because we waste time on money on programs that have no chance of success. And presumably learn from it. While wasting a lot of money and effort (and people) on programs that won't work isn't good, neither is not trying because the effect is presumed, pre hoc, to be small or non-existent. We live in a world where most people aren't enabled to achieve their potential. Figuring out that extrinsic rewards don't work to motivate behavioral changes or achievement for some people of a certain category, regardless of why, will hopefully result in the testing of other non-extrinsic-reward interventions that may work to motivate.

dusted 3y ago

This was my thought too, ofc. it's not a popular idea these days that genetics and heredity might have some bearing on success, but it does seem worthwhile looking into.. Anecdote time, I identified the reward-seeking behaviour in my peers in early childhood and didn't understand it, I felt they were acting like dogs, being overtly manipulated to do what the grownups wanted, and I felt disgusted with the idea. (I was not an easy child, but then again, I grew up to be a rather disagreeable adult) I come from a fairly normal lower middle-class family, but was consistently rewarded, except my response to praise and reward was mostly negative, and to some degree still is. I'm pretty sure my father was the same way, he'd do stuff for their own sake and his own sake, not because someone rewarded him for it. Unsurprisingly, taking into account how much potential I've been told I have, I'm a relatively low achiever, I'm simply not attracted to reward or winning very much, except maybe winning for its own sake, which just seems dumb.

LtWorf 3y ago
Looking into? Sure! Claiming that it's already established science when it absolutely isn't however…
- unwise-exe 3y ago
  We know for a fact that genetics has a large influence on intelligence. We know for a fact that genetics has a large influence on personality. . We know for a fact that (at scale*) intelligence is the single largest influence on success. IIRC, we're pretty sure that (at scale*) personality is the second largest influence on success. I.e., if you measure all the possible things that might influence success and run a principal component analysis, intelligence is the first component and personality the second. * Nepotism and such exist, but extreme cases are actually not that common. . It should not be controversial to acknowledge both part A and part B at the same time.
  - LtWorf 3y ago
    No we don't know for a fact any of these things.

jojobas 3y ago

>the possibility that a heritable reward-focus in the parents leads to the SES results This would imply that the problem with poor people lies within themselves rather than the society, which is an unacceptable proposition.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> which is an unacceptable proposition Why?
- hmcq6 3y ago
  Well first of all its circular logic. They're dumb because they're poor <-> They're poor because they're dumb. Setting aside my moral issues with the idea of Economic Phrenology I think this is an acceptable checkpoint to stop at when trying to reason out an answer. Feel free to stop, look around stretch out your legs. And then get back on that train of thought and take it to the end. Why are they poor? There's the circular logic argument of "well cuz they're dumb" but that ignores generational wealth, the gender wage gap, systemic inequality, luck, economics, and just a general lack of equity of opportunity. Some people smart people choose low paying jobs because it brings them a fulfillment money cant. Some dumb people get rich off the lottery. And like... We've all seen rich peoples kids. They're not all geniuses. It's just not a coherent belief. It is demonstrably not true.
  - Gibbon1 3y ago
    I remember high school, coach organized a wrestling match played out over a week. You had 32 matches. The winners competed in 16 matches. The winners of that competed in 8 matches. Then 4 matches, then 2 matches then the final match. When you've built an economic system that distributes wealth that way you can't cast moral aspersions on the losers. Because that's what it does, creates losers by design.
    - jojobas 3y ago
      There's repechage, and there's plenty of repechage in life. At the same time, yes life is not fair, and that's not really a property of the economic system anyone built.