The planning paradox: Poverty is linked to greater goal ambition and fewer plans, leading to lower goal progress

Juan Pablo Bermúdez, Gino Carmona-Díaz, María Alejandra Grisales, Santiago Amaya, Chandra Sripada, Jennifer Morton, Michael Inzlicht and William Jiménez-Leal
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Juan Pablo Bermúdez: University of Southampton, United Kingdom
Gino Carmona-Díaz: Universidad Externado de Colombia
María Alejandra Grisales: Universidad Externado de Colombia
Santiago Amaya: Rice University
Chandra Sripada: University of Michigan
Jennifer Morton: University of Pennsylvania.
Michael Inzlicht: University of Toronto
William Jiménez-Leal: Universidad de los Andes

No 2026-46, Documentos CEDE from Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE

Abstract: How does poverty affect people’s capacity to pursue their goals? Prevailing perspectives suggest lower socioeconomic status (SES) impairs goal achievement by reducing aspiration and weakening self-regulation. Across two preregistered studies with Colombian adults across the SES spectrum (total N = 1197), we challenge this view by documenting a planning paradox: compared to higher-SES counterparts, lower-SES individuals reported goals they perceived as more ambitious and longer-term, but were less likely to have concrete plans to achieve them. They also faced more circumstantial barriers where external conditions, not internal motivational conflicts, blocked goal progress. These findings are consistent with a structural perspective, which attributes SES differences in planning to environmental instability and informational constraints rather than cognitive overload. Poverty may not undermine self-regulation so much as reduce the effectiveness of planning in unstable contexts.

Keywords: Poverty; Planning; Socioeconomic status; Self-regulation; Decision-making (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 D91 I32 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23
Date: 2026-08
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Published in Documentos CEDE - Universidad de los Andes

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