Theoretical Issues in Poverty Research.

The paper offers some critical comments concerning more general conceptual topics in psychological research in poverty. In passing, observations also will be made on empirical research in the field. In very general terms, the psychology of poverty can be seen as concerned with the relationship between environment and behavior. To put it another way, the psychology of poverty deals with the "interface" between the economic system and the individual: the relationship between a particular array of physical and interpersonal stimuli and psychological structure or overt behavior. Unfortunately, the researchers' theoretical and conceptual tools for analyzing such inter-level problems still are unsophisticated and unsystematic. Most extant psychological theories are woefully inadequate for dealing with the type of problems presented by poverty. A theoretical system bridging the psychological level and the level of the social (and economic) system within a single conceptual framework would seem to be most congruent with the nature of the problems encountered in research in poverty.