Health Professions Students’ Ways of Knowing and Social Orientation in Relationship to Poverty Beliefs

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine health professions students' beliefs about the causes of poverty and to identify individual characteristics that may contribute to these beliefs. Health professions students (n = 268) and professional school counselors (n = 605) completed assessments which assessed three variables: (a) poverty attributes (internal or person's fault and external society's fault); (b) ways of knowing (connected knowing, i.e., empathic and separate knowing, i.e., devil's advocate); and (c) cultural values of group identity, i.e., individualism and, collectivism and power distance, i.e., verticalism and horizontalism. Analyses revealed that the health professions students weighted the internal and external causes of poverty equally, whereas, the school counselors weighted the external causes significantly higher than the internal causes. Regression with both groups of participants combined indicated that those with higher verticalism and lower income, were more likely to blame the person, while those having a multicultural course and higher connected knowing where less likely to blame the person. Those participants with higher separate knowing and verticalism were more likely to blame society.

Causal Attribution for Poverty in Young People: Sociodemographic Characteristics, Religious and Political Beliefs

“…The whole group of undergraduate students in Spain showed a higher frequency in external-structural attributions followed by internal and cultural attributions. These findings are similar to those found in different countries with different samples of students, mostly from social or health sciences and humanistic degrees (psychology, social sciences or social work) (Nasser et al 2005;Weiss and Gal 2007;Ljubotina and Ljubotina 2007;Halik et al 2012;Bobbio et al 2010;Stewart and Schommer-Aikins 2016;Vázquez et al 2017;Bastias et al 2019;Scheffer et al 2019;Isla-Esquivel 2021;Stephen et al 2021). This study includes a majority of psychology and physiotherapy students (health sciences group) who have to maintain less "social distance" or "closer relationships" with their patients and their needs, including a certain social sensitivity toward exclusion groups.…”

“…There are not so many studies on health profession students, but the results are heterogeneous, showing both internal and external causes of poverty. However, these students did achieve more positive attitudes or attributions to poverty and social justice through educational programs in poverty (Stewart and Schommer-Aikins 2016;Richey et al 2016;Delavega et al 2017;Scheffer et al 2019).…”