Socioeconomic Risk for Adolescent Cognitive Control and Emerging Risk‐Taking Behaviors

Abstract

This study examined whether cognitive control mediated the association between socioeconomic status (SES; composite of income‐to‐needs ratio and parent education) and changes in risk‐taking behaviors. The sample included 167 dyads of adolescents (53% male; Mage = 14.07 years at Time 1) and their parents, assessed annually across 4 years. Parents reported socioeconomic variables at Time 1. Adolescents reported risk‐taking behaviors at Times 1 and 4, and completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging cognitive control task at Times 2 and 3. Lower SES was associated with lower behavioral (but not neural) cognitive control, which was associated with increases in risk‐taking behaviors. The findings suggest that elevated socioeconomic risk may compromise cognitive control which can cascade into maladaptive behaviors in adolescence.

Socioeconomic Status and Risk-Taking Behavior Among Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Psychological Capital and Self-Control

“…Consistent with H3, the study confirmed self-control as another important mediator of the relationship between SES and adolescents’ risk-taking behavior. This essentially coheres with previous findings that low SES is usually associated with lower levels of self-control among adolescents, indirectly leading to an increased incidence of risk-taking behaviors that hinder physical and mental health ( Brieant et al, 2020 ). One reason for this may be the impact of low SES on individual cognitive neurodevelopment.…”

“…Recent studies on brain mechanisms have also implicated cognitive control in demonstrating that SES has a significant indirect impact on changes in adolescents’ risk-taking behavior. Adolescents from families with lower SES exhibit lower levels of cognitive control, increasing their tendency to take risks ( Brieant et al, 2020 ). It is therefore likely that poor SES exacerbates the negative effects of low self-control on risk-taking behavior during adolescence.…”

Parental education is associated with differential engagement of neural pathways during inhibitory control

“…In parallel, Spielberg et al (2015) found increased activity in the anterior cingulate during response inhibition over a two-year period was associated with poorer inhibitory control among females, but not males, from lower SES backgrounds based on the Hollingshead Four-Factor Index of SES, which includes household education and occupational prestige. In addition, behavioral studies of inhibitory performance and SES (i.e., including parental education, income, and neighborhood poverty) have found significant relationships between lower SES and lower inhibitory control performance 39 , 42 – 44 .…”

“…However, parental education was not associated with IFG activity during inhibitory control or with inhibitory performance. Other recent studies showed that poverty is associated with performance on cognitive control tasks 43 , and that lower SES is associated with reduced inhibitory control on behavioral tasks, despite not finding corresponding effects in the brain 44 . Although these results support the notion that early socioeconomic adversity of different types may shape the development of inhibitory control, more research is needed regarding how parental education affects behavioral and brain measures of response inhibition, a key executive function in avoiding risky behaviors and protecting health.…”

The role of executive functions, social cognition and intelligence in predicting social adaptation of vulnerable populations

“…Furthermore, living in vulnerable conditions, particularly as a child, may be a driver for reduction in performance of functions associated with the prefrontal cortex-that have been independently associated with SA-such as social cognition (SC) (includes decision-making, emotional processing, Theory of Mind (ToM), and empathy), uid intelligence (FI), crystallized intelligence (CI), and executive functions (EF) [7,8,9,10,11,12]. Given the behavioral control exhibited by these cognitive functions, it has been suggested that adolescents living in poverty who exhibit de cits in these functions may partake in resultant maladaptive behaviors that thwart SA [13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20] The dynamics, precedents, and interactions of these cognitive functions in the context of SA and social vulnerability, however, are not yet fully understood. By elucidating the ways in which these cognitive concepts work together and separately in predicting social outcomes, we might better understand the role of speci c variables in predicting SA.…”