African American Children’s Diminished Returns of Subjective Family Socioeconomic Status on Fun Seeking

Abstract

<jats:p>Background: Reward sensitivity (fun-seeking) is a risk factor for a wide range of high-risk behaviors. While high socioeconomic status (SES) is known to reduce reward sensitivity and associated high-risk behaviors, less is known about the differential effects of SES on reward sensitivity. It is plausible to expect weaker protective effects of family SES on reward sensitivity in racial minorities, a pattern called Minorities’ Diminished Returns (MDRs). Aim: We compared Caucasian and African American (AA) children for the effects of subjective family SES on children’s fun-seeking. Methods: This was a cross-sectional analysis of 7061 children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. The independent variable was subjective family SES. The main outcome was children’s fun-seeking measured by the behavioral approach system (BAS) and behavioral avoidance system (BIS). Age, gender, marital status, and household size were the covariates. Results: In the overall sample, high subjective family SES was associated with lower levels of fun-seeking. We also found a statistically significant interaction between race and subjective family SES on children’s fun-seeking in the overall sample, suggesting that high subjective family SES is associated with a weaker effect on reducing fun-seeking among AA than Caucasian children. In race-stratified models, high subjective family SES was protective against fun-seeking of Caucasian but not AA children. Conclusion: Subjective family SES reduces the fun-seeking for Caucasian but not AA children.</jats:p>

Social Determinants of Delayed Gratification Among American Children

“…This is the first paper that documents the differential effects of family income on delayed gratification/delayed discounting of Latino and non-Latino children in the US. Racial and ethnic differences in the effects of family SES are reported for other psychological factors such as inhibitory control [42], fun seeking [27], and impulsivity [28]. The unique contribution of this paper is to enrich the literature on differential effects of family income on delay gratification and delayed discounting which are correlated with a wide range of high-risk behaviors [24,29,30,32,39].…”

“…This study, however, extends this literature to the comparison of Latino We found that while children who live in high-income families have high delayed gratification, this effect is not the same for Latino compared with non-Latino families. Some research studies have shown the differential effects of family income, household income, parental education, and marital status on impulse control [28], inhibitory control [42], and fun seeking [27] by race and ethnicity. As a result, high SES Latino and Black children have high aggression [16], poor school function [21], school bonding [43], and tobacco use [18].…”

“…Another alternative can be high levels of stress in the life of Latino and Black families with high SES [14]. There is, however, another explanation for higher than the ex-A pected behavioral risk of high SES Latino and Black children, which is poor emotion regulation and inhibitory control, high impulsivity, high delay discounting, and weak delayed gratification [27,28].…”

American Children’s Screen Time: Diminished Returns of Household Income in Black Families

“…In other ABCD studies, high-SES black children remained at risk of reward dependence. However, white high-SES children had low reward dependencies [ 42 , 67 ]. In other studies, high-SES black children remained at risk of social, emotional, and behavioral problems.…”

“…We only tested the MDRs of family income. Previous work had established MDRs of various family SES indicators, such as parental education [ 42 , 67 ]. Future research should test if similar MDRs also apply for other behaviors and time spent on other activities.…”