| Poverty has long been a worldwide problem.To solve this problem,our country has made a lot of efforts.However,while poverty alleviation has been effective,there are also new problems,such as the phenomenon of returning to poverty among poor groups that have received poverty alleviation and assistance.The survey results show that since 2000,the number of people lifted out of poverty in China has remained at 2-3million in most years,but the rate of return to poverty in rural areas is usually over 20%,and even over 60% in some years,of which 62% of the poor in 2009 return to poverty.Studies in recent years have also found that it is difficult for the poor to get rid of poverty completely through material assistance alone,and it is very easy to return to poverty after being lifted out of poverty,probably because the poor are more likely to make irrational and inappropriate economic decisions.This requires relevant policy agencies to design more effective poverty alleviation policies from the psychological and behavioral aspects of the poor.In daily life,uncertainty exists in all aspects,and people are facing risks when they face uncertainty,so risk decision-making is an unavoidable problem in people’s lives.Risk decision-making is even more important for poor groups,because the lack of resources for survival makes the same risky decisions always more difficult for them.Therefore,the theme of this paper is the influence of poverty mentality on individual risk appetite.In terms of risk problems,risk decision-making and risk attitude have often been synonymous with risk appetite in past studies,and most studies have not made too many distinctions between the two concepts,or even mixed into one concept.On the issue of risk,risk attitude and risk decision-making actually express different meanings and have different characteristics.And in the way of evaluation,the standard of measurement and other aspects are not the same.In this paper,risk attitudes and risk decision-making as two aspects of risk issues will be studied in more depth,and the connections and differences between them will also be explored.In terms of poverty mentality,the usual way the laboratory studies the poverty mentality is to artificially manipulate the poverty mentality before carrying out other decision-making tasks.The specific ways of mentality manipulation can be divided into two categories,perceptual mobilization and resource differences.Two manipulations of the poverty mentality are also used in this article to test their effectiveness.After referring to many studies on poverty problems and risk problems,this study uses laboratory experiments to obtain detailed data on various risk decision-making tasks of individuals in various risk decision-making tasks by using the method of poverty mentality,collects various possible influencing factors in the form of questionnaires,and examines the influence of poverty mentality and other factors on individual risk decision-making and risk attitude.The risk decision-making tasks used in the three experimental studies were different: the first study used 9 rounds of multiple choice tasks;Study II used 20 rounds of multiple choice tasks;Study III used 10 rounds of scenario-based missions.In both studies one and two,the poverty mentality manipulation was used,and the third study introduced more quantitative and type influencing factors.Finally,conclusions are drawn from the data collected,and relevant recommendations are made for the design of poverty alleviation activities.Through descriptive statistical analysis,difference test and ols regression analysis on the data of the experimental results,the main research conclusions of this paper are drawn.In terms of the selection of variables related to poverty mentality,the poverty mentality manipulation methods used in the laboratory may not be able to induce an effective poverty mentality,thereby affecting an individual’s risk decision-making or risk attitude.In terms of the influence of poverty mentality on risk decision-making and risk attitude,the poorer the individual,the stronger the poverty mentality,the more conservative the risk decision-making,and the more negative the risk attitude.In terms of the influence of other factors,the influence of age is more obvious,and the increase of age will make risk decision-making risky without changing risk attitudes.Because with the increase of age,the individual’s understanding of risk issues will deepen,their ability to bear risks will also be strengthened,and they will be more eager for the high returns brought by high risks,and naturally they will become more risky in the face of risk decision-making,but the risk attitude is greatly affected by the level of rich and poor,and they are still biased towards risk aversion.Other factors,such as education,family environment,and personal experience,did not have a significant and consistent effect on risk decisions in the study in this paper.In addition,there are two other points worth noting in the conclusions of the study:First,in the second study,the stronger the perception of poverty in daily life,the more positive the risk attitude becomes.Second,in Study 3,both variables that express the level of individual wealth and poverty,the annual family income and the value of family housing have diametrically opposite effects on risk attitudes: the higher the annual family income,the more positive the risk attitude;the higher value of family housing,the more negative the risk attitude. |
