Science at CU: The psychology of poverty

"The psychology of poverty is still a relatively new research direction at the interface of economics and psychology," explains the scientific and partnership couple Julie Chytilová and Michal Bauer from CERGE-EI and the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University. In their projects, however, they also look at conflicts in society or the willingness to be vaccinated. They present more in one minute.

Julie Chytilová and Michal Bauer address questions in the field of the psychology of poverty, a relatively new research area at the interface of economics and psychology. "Basically, we are trying to better understand how living in poverty affects people's economic decision-making and behaviour, for example, their level of patience," says Julie Chytilová.

"We are also interested in the different forms of conflict in society and, in particular, how ethnic intolerance spreads and how armed conflicts affect social behaviour and group identity," adds Michal Bauer, the husband-colleague. Read more in a separate article.

"We also addressed the question of why many people did not want to be vaccinated during the caveat pandemic and showed that public misguided expectations about what experts think play an important role. "The moment they got clear statistical data about the real opinions of experts, doctors, their willingness to be vaccinated increased significantly," summarizes Michal Bauer. We wrote more about the study in a separate article.

"We were pleased that the results of the research not only caught the attention of the academic community, because the study was published in the journal Nature, but also a short animated video was created based on the study, which actually brings the results to the wider public," adds Julie Chytilová.