Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much

by Sendhil Mullainathan

This is important because so many of our behaviors, not just parenting, rely on bandwidth. For example, an overtaxed bandwidth means a greater propensity to forget. Not so much the things you know (what psychologists call declarative memory), like the make of your first car, but things that fall under what psychologists call prospective memory—memory for things that you had planned to remember, like calling the doctor or paying a bill by the due date. These tasks must be maintained alive in your head, and they get neglected when your bandwidth is reduced. Is it any surprise then that the poor fail to take their medications? Some may find this hard to believe: how can you forget something so important? But memory doesn’t work that way. You don’t remember as a function of long-term value. Certainly no one forgets to take painkillers: the pain is a constant reminder. Diseases such as diabetes, though, are “silent”; their consequences are not immediately felt. There is nothing to remind a person with an overburdened bandwidth to take those medications.