mockingbird
Silver Meritorious Patron
Scientology has a huge percentage of people that are deeply impoverished. Most Sea Org members and many staff members are extremely poor and this is by design. Ron Hubbard created the orgs with no minimum wage and many Sea Org members make pennies per hour, if they get paid at all.
Recent studies have found that farmers who are extremely poor for part of the year and get most or all of their pay at once have an interesting change. When they are flat broke they do much more poorly on IQ tests. When they have received their pay for the year their IQ scores rise sharply.
Apparently being distracted by a mindset of scarcity drastically reduces IQ. If this hypothesis is true then Scientology is sabotaging itself by impoverishing most of its most loyal and devoted members.
Many people have noted that lots of Scientology cult members act as if their aptitude is diminished while in Scientology. I think this may be partially explained by other factors described by cult experts such as Alexandra Stein in her book Terror, Love and Brainwashing and Margaret Singer in her book Cults In Our Midst and Robert Jay Lifton in the eight criteria for thought reform (free online and in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism).
If this initial hypothesis gets lots of verification by repetition of results in further studies it can revolutionize several fields and policies. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow described how people make worse decisions in a mindset of scarcity - when they are losing financially no matter how they spend their income they are in a no win scenario and make worse decisions than people who are not in such dire straits.
Now a lot of people have long said poor people on average make worse decisions than people who are not poor. But the explanation often used was that they make bad decisions and so that results in their poverty. The reality that the exact same people can take IQ tests before getting paid and do poorly then get paid a lump sum and have their IQs rise on average significantly introduces the idea that IQ is not entirely the result of genetics and education. It also may be influenced by economic circumstances.
Recent studies have found that farmers who are extremely poor for part of the year and get most or all of their pay at once have an interesting change. When they are flat broke they do much more poorly on IQ tests. When they have received their pay for the year their IQ scores rise sharply.
Apparently being distracted by a mindset of scarcity drastically reduces IQ. If this hypothesis is true then Scientology is sabotaging itself by impoverishing most of its most loyal and devoted members.
Many people have noted that lots of Scientology cult members act as if their aptitude is diminished while in Scientology. I think this may be partially explained by other factors described by cult experts such as Alexandra Stein in her book Terror, Love and Brainwashing and Margaret Singer in her book Cults In Our Midst and Robert Jay Lifton in the eight criteria for thought reform (free online and in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism).
If this initial hypothesis gets lots of verification by repetition of results in further studies it can revolutionize several fields and policies. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow described how people make worse decisions in a mindset of scarcity - when they are losing financially no matter how they spend their income they are in a no win scenario and make worse decisions than people who are not in such dire straits.
Now a lot of people have long said poor people on average make worse decisions than people who are not poor. But the explanation often used was that they make bad decisions and so that results in their poverty. The reality that the exact same people can take IQ tests before getting paid and do poorly then get paid a lump sum and have their IQs rise on average significantly introduces the idea that IQ is not entirely the result of genetics and education. It also may be influenced by economic circumstances.
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