The things that keep people caught in a cycle of poverty are not solely monetary. And getting out of that cycle is not necessarily about money either. Dr. Joseph LeDoux says that part of the reason that folks are locked into cycles of generational poverty is because of the way our brain reacts to emotions like fear, stress, and anxiety. The way out of the cycle may be to engage emotions like hope.
The poverty gap is one of the most pressing issues confronting mankind. Although the number of poor people as defined by the United Nations has gone down from 1.7 billion in 2011 to 1 billion in 2012, the problem persists. One out of three people in the world lives in poverty. Every day, 25,000 people around the world die of hunger or hunger-related causes.
Original article written by Isabel Pastor and posted in Brain World Magazine April 26, 2012.
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