Associations between poverty and attention processes in early adolescence: Adaptation to context

• In Event: Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

Research has shown that childhood poverty can impact children’s mental and physical well-being. Attentional processes may be one mechanism underlying the association between poverty and health. Yet, it is unclear whether and how poverty-related experiences exert general or specific effects on attention under various ecological conditions. Recent theoretical models posit that children who develop in harsh, unpredictable environments develop cognitive abilities that are adaptive within similar ecologically-valid constraints (Ellis et al., 2020). Such enhanced stress-adapted skills can be leveraged for promoting resilient functioning and have important implications for the development of youth programs and policies. The current analysis extends a burgeoning literature by exploring the extent to which larger socioeconomic inequalities and proximal stressors and resources in the home independently predict distinct attentional adaptations in benign (i.e. neutral) versus threatening conditions in early adolescence.

Data comes from the Family Life Project (N = 1,292), a prospective longitudinal sample of children in predominantly low-income and rural communities (Vernon-Feagans & Cox, 2013). Home visits were conducted across the first 13 years of the target child’s life. At the latest wave, (M age = 13.18 ), approximately 49% children were identified by their parents as female, 42% as African American, and 58% reside in NC (42% in PA). Latent measures of sociocognitive resources and psychosocial threat were derived from the HOME (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984), and Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS; Straus & Gelles, 1990) measures and averaged across time (see DeJoseph, Sifre, Raver, Blair, & Berry, in press). To compare age 12 attention in neutral/benign conditions with threatening/affective conditions, we used the Hearts and Flowers task (Diamond et al., 2007) and Dot Probe task (McCoy et al., 2016), respectively. We hypothesized that family income and material deprivation would be associated with both types of attention whereas greater sociocognitive resources would be associated with greater attention only in benign conditions, and greater psychosocial threat would be associated with attention only in threatening conditions.

Controlling for demographic covariates and executive function in early childhood, multiple regression analyses demonstrated that greater sociocognitive resources predicts executive attention in benign conditions (b = 0.062 , SE = 0.016 , p < .05), as hypothesized. Income-to-needs ratio lost statistical significance when more proximal sources of material deprivation and psychosocial threat were included in the model, which when added, explained an additional 0.75% of variation. Contrary to our hypotheses, models predicting attention bias in threatening conditions showed no statistically significant effects of psychosocial threat or any other proximal exposure. See Table 1 and Figure 1 below.

These findings demonstrate the additive and specific ways distal and proximal exposures associated with poverty influence youths’ attentional processes. Leveraging and promoting the inherent strengths of families experiencing economic hardship may support adaptive and resilient youth development.

Authors

• Salma Ibrahim, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Presenting Author

• Meriah L. DeJoseph, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Non-Presenting Author

• Clancy Blair, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel Berry, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Non-Presenting Author