The Effect of Financial Scarcity on Reinforcer Pathology: A Dyadic Developmental Examination

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of experimentally manipulated scarcity on the reinforcing value of food (RRVfood) and delay discounting (DD), which, together, create reinforcer pathology (RP) among parents and offspring. A stratified sample of 106 families (53 parent/child aged 7–10 dyads & 53 parent/adolescent aged 15–17 dyads) from high- and low-income households visited our laboratory for three appointments. Each appointment included an experimental manipulation of financial gains and losses and DD and RRV tasks. The results showed that, regardless of food insecurity or condition, children had greater RP (β = 1.63, p < 0.001) than adolescents and parents. DD was largely unaffected by acute scarcity in any group, but families with food insecurity had greater DD (β = −0.09, p = 0.002) than food-secure families. Food-insecure parents with children responded to financial losses with an increase in their RRVfood (β = −0.03, p = 0.011), while food-secure parents and food-insecure parents of adolescents did not significantly change their responding based on conditions. This study replicates findings that financial losses increase the RRVfood among adults with food insecurity and extends this literature by suggesting that this is strongest for parents of children.

The Effect of Food Insecurity and Stress on Delay Discounting across Families: A COVID-19 Natural Experiment

“…Despite a strong association between food insecurity and greater DD at baseline across all age groups [39], we found that pandemic food insecurity was only associated with greater DD among parents, which was not signi cant after controlling for baseline DD and food insecurity. This may be because few families changed their food security status between timepoints.…”

“…Among parents, greater pandemic food insecurity was associated with greater pandemic DD (r(70) = -0.26, p = 0.29). However, this was no longer signi cant after controlling for baseline DD and baseline food insecurity (which were also associated with one another [39]) in the mixed model.…”

“…Study procedures for both the original study and the follow-up survey were approved by the University at Buffalo Institutional Review Board. Procedures for the original study have been described elsewhere [13,39]. Brie y, families attended appointments on three separate occasions and were covertly exposed to a manipulation of small nancial gains and losses, followed by a series of behavioral tasks, including the DD task.…”

“…The current analysis is a follow-up of a pre-pandemic cohort, recruited to study behavioral differences in families with and without food insecurity [39] and the role of stress in those differences [13]. This followup was not planned as part of the original study aims, but we saw an opportunity to reassess families, as the original measures were likely to be impacted by the pandemic.…”

“…The evidence that is available suggests that poverty and food insecurity may narrow the temporal window for individuals, such that immediate rewards are much more salient [14,15,39]. Although there are associations among experiences of poverty, food insecurity, stress, and greater DD, these studies come from a disparate literature, with few longitudinal or experimental studies, and fewer still that have examined childhood and adolescence.…”