Household Income and Early Adolescents’ Executive Function: The Different Roles of Perceived Discrimination and Shift-and-Persist

• Published in: Journal of youth and adolescence Vol. 52; no. 12; pp. 2636 - 2646
• Main Authors: Zhang, Jiatian, Mei, Kehan, Deng, Yiyi, Ren, Yi, Huang, Silin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-12-2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Adolescent development; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Child and School Psychology; Child development; Children & youth; Clinical Psychology; Cognitive ability; Cognitive development; Discrimination; Education; Empirical Research; Executive function; Experimental psychology; Families & family life; Family income; Flexibility; Health Psychology; History of Psychology; Households; Hypotheses; Income; Law and Psychology; Memory; Poverty; Protective factors; Psychology; Rural areas; Stereotypes; Teenagers; Executive function; Shift-and-persist; Perceived discrimination; Household income; Early adolescents
• ISSN: 0047-2891; 1573-6601
• DOI: 10.1007/s10964-023-01851-1

Household income predicts early adolescents’ cognitive development. However, the mechanism underlying this association and protective factors are unclear. This study assessed one-year longitudinal data to examine whether perceived discrimination mediated the association between household income and executive function and the moderating role of shift-and-persist. 344 early adolescents in rural China were included in the study (mean = 10.88 years,
SD
 = 1.32 years, girls: 51.74%). The latent variable model revealed that household income predicted early adolescents’ cognitive flexibility and working memory in the subsequent year through perceived discrimination. Shift-and-persist moderated the negative effects of perceived discrimination on cognitive flexibility: perceived discrimination impeded cognitive flexibility only among early adolescents with low shift-and-persist. The findings highlight perceived discrimination in the relation between household income and early adolescents’ executive function and underscore the protective role of shift-and-persist.