Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2017
Abstract
A recent body of work in neuroscience examines the brains of people suffering from social and economic disadvantage. This article assesses claims that this research can help generate more effective strategies for addressing these social conditions and their effects. It concludes that the so-called neuroscience of deprivation has no unique practical payoff, and that scientists, journalists, and policy-makers should stop claiming otherwise. Because this research does not, and generally cannot, distinguish between innate versus environmental causes of brain characteristics, it cannot predict whether neurological and behavioral deficits can be addressed by reducing social deprivation. Also, knowledge of brain mechanisms yields no special insights, over and above behavioral science and social observation, into how to alleviate harms attributed to deprivation. That project depends on changing real-world circumstances and behaviors, which is limited by ethical, practical, and political constraints.
Keywords
Poverty, neuroscience, behavioral science, brain scans, cognition, poverty as a disability, alleviating social deprivation, causation, policies to aid the disadvantaged, social inequality
Publication Title
Jurimetrics
Repository Citation
Wax, Amy L., "The Poverty of the Neuroscience of Poverty: Policy Payoff or False Promise?" (2017). All Faculty Scholarship. 1711.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/1711
Included in
Behavioral Neurobiology Commons, Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms Commons, Biological Psychology Commons, Disability Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Law and Psychology Commons, Law and Society Commons, Other Mental and Social Health Commons, Other Sociology Commons, Psychological Phenomena and Processes Commons, Science and Technology Studies Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons, Social Welfare Law Commons
Publication Citation
57 Jurimetrics 239 (2017)