Personal relative deprivation impairs the ability to inhibit impulsive responses: an exploratory ERP study

Evidence indicates that personal relative deprivation (PRD) can lead to various impulsive behaviors. Given that impulsive behaviors are usually caused by a failure to exert cognitive control, the purpose of this study was to explore whether PRD affects the ability to exert cognitive control on behavior. Forty-six healthy participants were randomly assigned to PRD or non-PRD group. Participants of the PRD group were told their income would lie below the Chinese average. While their electrophysiological responses were recorded, they underwent a Go/No-Go task simultaneously assessing the ability to detect response conflict and inhibit the predominant response. We found that the individuals with induced PRD show diminished ability to inhibit predominant response. We suggest this is because PRD-related concerns consume cognitive resources, leaving less for other tasks. However, we also found that individuals with induced PRD show enhanced ability to detect conflict. This might be because that individuals with induced PRD were sensitive to potentially threatening information (high-conflict No-Go trials) and they can detect conflict with less cognitive resources. These findings may facilitate future attempts to design interventions for relatively deprived individuals to manage their impulsive behavior.