关键词: 贫困经历儿童, 执行功能, 稀缺, 损耗

Abstract: Poverty has always been a challenge for human society. For children living in poverty, it is the crucial basis to break this fatalism that improving and developing their abilities in childhood accurately. Despite the long–established negative effects of poverty, the underlying mechanism is still unclear. In contrast to traditional explanations that primarily focus on disadvantaged environments or personality traits of the poor, this study focused on the mental processes required by poverty and provided initial evidence that the short interventions could compensate for the depletion of poverty on Chinese children’s executive function. Two studies were conducted within the framework of limited resource depletion (including scarcity in attention and self–depletion in processing). Study 1 mainly aimed to investigate the specific impact of money scarcity on children living in poverty. This was achieved by examining the effects of both money–related (scarcity) and non–money–related (normal) depletion using the classic paradigm of depletion, which corresponds to the depletion of attention and self–control resources, respectively. A total of 179 children (M = 10.89, SD = 1.45, 55.30% boys) participated in this study. Half of the participants were from families in poverty registration or poverty alleviation relocation, and the other half were from a first–tier city in China. Based on these results, study 2 was designed to explore whether four common compensations of self–depletion could counteract money–scarcity depletion among children in poverty and promote their executive function. A total of 180 children (M = 11.36, SD = 1.59, 45.60% boys) whose families were identified as either poverty–registered or poverty–alleviation relocated participated. The study first primed a money–scarcity state, as was done in study 1. Subsequently, four compensations (i.e., money, candy, praise, and rest) were provided in order to simulate the depletion and recovery of mental resources in real–world contexts. The findings of study 1 indicated that the scarcity resulting from a money–related situation led to a distinctive depletion of executive function in children who had experienced poverty. This was attributed to a combination of diminished attention and self–control resources. Specifically, for children living in poverty, the scarcity–depletion group performed worst on executive function compared with the control group and the normal–depletion group. In contrast, children in the non–poverty group demonstrated no significant differences in inhibition control and cognitive flexibility between the scarcity–depletion and normal–depletion groups, and both performed worse than the control group. The results of study 2 revealed that not all conventional forms of compensation were effective in counteracting the depleted executive function observed in children with poor experience. In the four compensations, monetary and candy rewards were observed to counteract the depleted resources after the scarcity depletion. These rewards were further found to facilitate the recovery of the three components of executive function, while resting for five minutes and praise rewards were unable to restore the expected original state of executive function. In conclusion, this study integrates and expends the significant role of limited resource depletion theory on executive function in children living in poverty. Furthermore, the temporary depletion of poverty on executive function in poor children can be compensated by alleviating scarce resources or restoring self–control, which further explains the joint influence of attention and self–control resources in poverty depletion underlying the limited resource depletion framework. This study provides a novel approach to mitigating the adverse effects of poverty on children’s executive function through brief interventions. Thus by changing the accustomed thinking process, this intervention could effectively enhance poor children’s executive function and alleviate poverty, while also fostering intrinsic motivation and breaking the poverty cycle.

Key words: children in poverty, executive function, scarcity, depletion