Learning, Research & Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America.
Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Nov 12;19(11):e0310972. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310972. eCollection 2024.
Early exposure to poverty may have profound and enduring impacts on developmental trajectories over the lifespan. This study investigated potential links between childhood socioeconomic position, recent economic change, and temporal discounting in a large international cohort (N = 12,951 adults from 61 countries). Temporal discounting refers to the tendency to prefer smaller immediate rewards over larger rewards delivered after a delay, and connects to consequential outcomes including academic achievement, occupational success, and risk-taking behaviors. Consistent with multiple theories about the impacts of stress exposure, individuals who reported lower socioeconomic positions in childhood exhibited greater temporal discounting in adulthood compared to peers who did not. Furthermore, an interaction emerged between childhood socioeconomic position and recent economic change, such that the steepest temporal discounting was found among those from lower childhood socioeconomic positions who also recently experienced negative economic change as a result of the COVID pandemic. These associations remained significant even when accounting for potentially confounding factors like education level and current employment. Findings provide new evidence that childhood socioeconomic position relates to greater temporal discounting and steeper devaluation of future rewards later in adulthood, particularly in response to contemporaneous economic change. This suggests childhood socioeconomic position may have longer-term impacts on developmental trajectories. Speculatively, childhood socioeconomic position may shape adult behavior through increased life stress, diminished access to resources, and lower perceived trust and reliability in social systems. These findings underscore the long-term implications of socioeconomic gaps, cycles of disadvantage and economic marginalization.
早期贫困经历可能对整个人生的发展轨迹产生深远而持久的影响。本研究在一个大型国际队列（来自 61 个国家的 12951 名成年人）中调查了童年社会经济地位、近期经济变化与时间贴现之间的潜在联系。时间贴现是指更倾向于即时较小奖励而不是延迟较大奖励的倾向，它与包括学业成就、职业成功和冒险行为在内的重要结果有关。与关于压力暴露影响的多种理论一致，与那些童年时期没有经历过低社会经济地位的同龄人相比，报告童年时期社会经济地位较低的个体在成年时表现出更大的时间贴现。此外，童年社会经济地位和近期经济变化之间出现了一种相互作用，即那些来自较低童年社会经济地位的人，由于 COVID 大流行导致近期经济变化，时间贴现最为陡峭。即使考虑到教育水平和当前就业等潜在混杂因素，这些关联仍然显著。这些发现提供了新的证据，表明童年社会经济地位与成年后更大的时间贴现和未来奖励的更大贬值有关，尤其是在应对当前经济变化时。这表明童年社会经济地位可能对发展轨迹有长期影响。推测起来，童年社会经济地位可能通过增加生活压力、减少资源获取、降低对社会系统的信任和可靠性，塑造成人行为。这些发现突显了社会经济差距、劣势循环和经济边缘化的长期影响。
