Economic Scarcity Impedes Impoverished Children's Executive Function: The Role of Multiple Resources Examined Through Eye Tracking

Abstract

Poverty is a chronic social issue with profound implications for human development. Although scarcity theory provides a new framework for how poverty depletes mental resources, the specific cognitive pathways through which this process of depletion occurs and subsequently impairs cognition remain unclear. This study explored the integrative effect of attention and self-control resources on executive function through eye tracking among children in poverty. A total of 181 Chinese children (mean age 10.73 years; 48.62% boys) participated, 94 of whom lived in poor families. Children who experienced poverty and those who were not in poverty were first randomly assigned to one of three priming conditions (attention depletion, self-control depletion, or non-depletion), followed by executive function tasks. The results revealed that children in poverty showed poorer executive function in the condition of self-control depletion (the active purchasing task) than in the attention depletion (the passive viewing task) or non-depletion conditions. For children experiencing poverty, their attention to price did not differ between the self-control and attention depletion; however, in self-control depletion, they paid more attention to prices than children who were not in poverty did. In addition, more price viewing predicted a decrease in executive function in the poverty group only. Thus, attention scarcity is unique to impoverished children, and self-control results in a major depletion of executive function in the integrative mental process. This study extends the findings of previous research on economic scarcity in younger Asian populations and clarifies the mental process that integrates attention and self-control resources between poverty and executive function.