Early poverty interacts with adolescent inhibitory control and physiological reactivity to predict adult externalizing problems

• In Event: 1-087 - Connecting environmental experience to the emergence of self-regulation: Insights from typical and atypical populations

Integrative Statement

Individuals developing in impoverished environments are at heightened risk for a host of physical and mental health difficulties across the lifespan. Studies indicate that children living in poverty are at increased risk for subsequent aggression, oppositional behavior, and other forms of externalizing psychopathology. While there is a well-replicated association between poverty and externalizing, not all children living in poverty will develop these challenges. Indeed, past research indicates that specific markers of risk, independent of poverty, may forecast the development of externalizing psychopathology. Two of the most well-studied markers of risk include impulsivity, as well as variations in physiological arousal. Poor inhibitory control, a neurocognitive indicator of impulsivity, has been consistently linked to higher externalizing problems, but for physiology, there are mixed findings especially looking across development and in the context of risk. Furthermore, looking at these multiple, independent bodies of research, it is unclear if these different risk factors (poverty; impulsivity; physiology) independently or interactively predict poorer mental health. Here, to overcome these limitations, we leverage a large-scale developmental project (initial n=585) that examined early environmental conditions, neurocognitive functioning, psychophysiology, and mental health across 20 years of development. Using this unique dataset, we explored the independent and interactive associations between poverty, inhibitory control, and resting heart rate, using linear regression models, to predict later externalizing problems. We found that: 1) early poverty (at 6 years of age) was related to adult externalizing psychopathology (at 20 years of age, in line with past research, p=0.037); 2) early poverty, when moderated by impulsivity and physiology (collected during adolescence), also predicted adult externalizing psychopathology (p=0.03). As such, we found that individuals who began life in poverty and had higher impulsivity and higher resting heart-rate during adolescence were those most likely to report increased externalizing problems as adults. We will discuss our results through the lens of self-regulation, as impulsivity and physiology may index variations in this multi-faceted construct. These findings provide complementary and comprehensive information regarding the developmental sequelae of early poverty, suggesting specific mechanistic pathways between poverty and disparities in mental health. This information could provide an additional vantage point for understanding risk and resiliency, as well as how environmental adversity (such as poverty) becomes developmentally embedded.

Authors

• Jamie Hanson, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Destany Calma-Birling, LRDC, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Lansford, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• John Bates, Indiana University - Bloomington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gregory S. Pettit, Auburn University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kenneth A. Dodge, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author