How Childhood Resources Affect Risk-Taking Later in Life

"It's no surprise that individual families provide different types of resources to their children; for example, some are able to provide more financial resources, while others offer more robust social supports. New research demonstrates that the specific resources available during childhood can impact a person's cognitive function later in life. This ground-breaking study by researchers at Cornell Human Ecology found that the types of resources available during childhood affect the cognitive mechanisms people use to evaluate risk as adults."

"The study, published last month in the journal Cerebral Cortex, included 43 college students who played computerized games that evaluated risk-taking while they underwent fMRI brain scans. After the games, the participants completed a survey about their parents' income during childhood, how they perceived their childhood neighborhood's quality and safety, their current economic resources, and the level of social support they currently received from family and friends."

"Researchers used the survey results to classify participants into two categories: socially rich or economically rich. Their analysis found that participants classified as socially rich, with strong social support but whose family had less money, and those who are economically rich, having more money but less social support, took similar levels of risk during the computer games. But those games activated different parts of participants' brains depending on the types of resources available to them."

A sample of 43 college students played computerized risk-taking games while undergoing fMRI scans. Surveys recorded parental income during childhood, perceived neighborhood quality and safety, current economic resources, and current social support from family and friends. Participants were categorized as socially rich (strong social support, less family money) or economically rich (more family money, less social support). Both groups exhibited similar levels of risk-taking during the tasks. Distinct brain regions activated between groups during risk evaluation, indicating that different cognitive mechanisms underlie similar behaviors. These differences suggest tailoring organizational support mechanisms to resource backgrounds.

Read at Psychology Today