Living in poverty for generations, being from lower status groups or having suffered discrimination lead to a belief that one cannot achieve a better future or change one’s outcomes.  If people have lived in poverty for generations, are from lower status groups or have suffered poverty, insecurity and discrimination, they may believe that they have limited ability to change their circumstances (Feagin, 1972; Levenson, 1974). Social psychologists have demonstrated that motivation, aspirations, hope, sense of efficacy, and self-control are strongly correlated with economic success and that it is possible to intervene to alter these attitudes and beliefs (Walton, 2014, Cohen et al., 2009, Duckworth et al., 2007).

People living in deprivation may perceive low returns to investment because people who make successful investments are not in their reference group (Genicot and Ray 2017). Theoretical research suggests low initial aspirations may cause people living in poverty to pass up costly but high-yield investment opportunities, further lowering expectations (Dalton et al., 2016). In these economic models and the social psychology literature, internal constraints can generate poverty traps that persist even when external constraints are alleviated.

In order to understand whether exposure to role models through a video documentary can change individuals' aspirations and their future-oriented investments, researchers tested whether a video-based intervention in rural Ethiopia could change economic outcomes.