The Mechanism of Socioeconomic Status Effects on Cognition

Socioeconomic status (SES) is a measurement of the sociological and economic statuses of individuals compared to others within the social and economic hierarchies. The common indicators of SES are income, education, and occupation statuses. Recently, researchers have used mixed measurements of SES, such as the MacArthur Scale. Numerous researches have proven the influence of SES on human development. Individuals who are less educated, have lower job status, and earn less or no income are at greater risk of poor health than their higher SES counterparts. SES has also been proven to influence life satisfaction, academic achievement, emotion regulation, cognitive function, and decision-making tendencies. SES has life span influence, which correlates with the level of cognition, rate of cognitive decline, and incidence of Alzheimer's disease among elderly individuals. Besides the individual level of SES, neighborhood SES can also affect cognitive function as an environmental factor. Low-SES individuals exhibit hypoactivation of the executive network and hyperactivation of the reward network, indicating low-SES individuals tend to focus more on monetary issues, while neglecting other non-monetary issues, which is consistent with the scarcity hypothesis.