Environmental adversity, life-history traits and cognitive functioning in children and adolescents

TL;DR

This study explores how environmental deprivation and threat affect children's cognitive development, and how these effects are influenced by life-history traits like adolescent fertility rates.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel analysis of how demographic life-history traits moderate the impact of environmental adversity on cognitive functioning in children.

Findings

Deprivation, not threat, was negatively linked to cognitive functioning after adjusting for various factors.

High adolescent fertility rates amplified the negative effect of deprivation on cognitive functioning.

Cognitive development appears to respond to environmental cues of deprivation, influenced by social-level life-history traits.

Abstract

Cognitive development can be considered a future-oriented investment that involves life-history (LH) trade-offs, which may be compromised in adverse environments. This study examined how cognitive functioning is related to individual-level environmental deprivation and threat, and the moderating role of demographic LH traits (indexed as adolescent fertility rate, AFR). Using data from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey and Global Burden of Disease database, a multi-level structural equation model tested cross-level moderation of AFR on the impacts of deprivation and threat on cognitive functioning (n = 63 861 children and adolescents across 38 countries). Deprivation, rather than threat, was negatively associated with cognitive functioning after adjusting for age, sex, education, maternal/carer's education and gross domestic product. High AFR amplified the negative association between deprivation and cognitive functioning. The findings support that cognitive development may respond to environmental cues of deprivation, and the observed association was further modified by social-level fast LH traits.

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