How Culturally Wise Psychological Interventions Help Reduce Poverty
Poverty is multidimensional, associated not only with a lack of financial resources, but also often social-psychological constraints, such as diminished agency and aspirations. Through a series of field experiments, this paper assesses the causal impacts of culturally wise interventions designed to build women’s agency on poverty reduction efforts in rural Niger. Moreover, the study identifies a model of agency that is “culturally wise” because it is the most motivational and functional in the study cultural context. Study 1 reports descriptive evidence that an interdependent model of agency—that is grounded in social harmony, respect, and collective advancement and that accounts for relational affordances for individual goals—is predominant in rural Niger. This stands in contrast to a more self-oriented, independent model grounded in personal aspirations, self-direction, and self-advancement that is more common in the West. Study 2 explores the psychosocial mechanisms of a highly effective, multifaceted poverty reduction program that included two psychosocial interventions—a community sensitization and a life skills training, which incorporated both models of agency. Although the results support the role of intrapersonal processes (including enhanced self-efficacy and optimistic future expectations) in driving economic impacts, there is equal, if not greater, support for relational processes (including increased subjective social standing, control over earnings, and social support). Study 3 conducts a mechanism experiment to disentangle the causal effects of interventions grounded in independent agency (“personal initiative”) or interdependent agency (“interpersonal initiative”). The results show that the interdependent agency intervention, which is considered to be most “culturally wise,” led to significant effects on economic outcomes as well as both intrapersonal and relational processes. By contrast, the independent agency intervention showed impacts on intrapersonal processes alone. These findings show the promise of an emerging area of research at the intersection of behavioral science, cultural psychology, and development economics for addressing complex global problems like poverty and inequality.
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper biblioteca |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
Washington, DC: World Bank
2024-06-28
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| Subjects: | POVERTY, BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE, PSYCHOLOGY, CULTURE, AGENCY, GRADUATION, ECONOMIC INCLUSION, PSYCHOSOCIAL, NO POVERTY, SDG 1, GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING, SDG 3, DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH, SDG 8, |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099025506262410295/IDU18c0fc4c619919149d8196051fa2f59845124 https://hdl.handle.net/10986/41797 |
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| Summary: | Poverty is multidimensional,
associated not only with a lack of financial resources, but
also often social-psychological constraints, such as
diminished agency and aspirations. Through a series of field
experiments, this paper assesses the causal impacts of
culturally wise interventions designed to build women’s
agency on poverty reduction efforts in rural Niger.
Moreover, the study identifies a model of agency that is
“culturally wise” because it is the most motivational and
functional in the study cultural context. Study 1 reports
descriptive evidence that an interdependent model of
agency—that is grounded in social harmony, respect, and
collective advancement and that accounts for relational
affordances for individual goals—is predominant in rural
Niger. This stands in contrast to a more self-oriented,
independent model grounded in personal aspirations,
self-direction, and self-advancement that is more common in
the West. Study 2 explores the psychosocial mechanisms of a
highly effective, multifaceted poverty reduction program
that included two psychosocial interventions—a community
sensitization and a life skills training, which incorporated
both models of agency. Although the results support the role
of intrapersonal processes (including enhanced self-efficacy
and optimistic future expectations) in driving economic
impacts, there is equal, if not greater, support for
relational processes (including increased subjective social
standing, control over earnings, and social support). Study
3 conducts a mechanism experiment to disentangle the causal
effects of interventions grounded in independent agency
(“personal initiative”) or interdependent agency
(“interpersonal initiative”). The results show that the
interdependent agency intervention, which is considered to
be most “culturally wise,” led to significant effects on
economic outcomes as well as both intrapersonal and
relational processes. By contrast, the independent agency
intervention showed impacts on intrapersonal processes
alone. These findings show the promise of an emerging area
of research at the intersection of behavioral science,
cultural psychology, and development economics for
addressing complex global problems like poverty and inequality. |
|---|