Household Income and Early Adolescents’ Executive Function: The Different Roles of Perceived Discrimination and Shift-and-Persist
- Resource Type
- Original Paper
- Authors
- Zhang, Jiatian; Mei, Kehan; Deng, Yiyi; Ren, Yi; Huang, Silin
- Source
- Journal of Youth and Adolescence: A Multidisciplinary Research Publication. 52(12):2636-2646
- Subject
- Executive function
Household income
Perceived discrimination
Shift-and-persist
Early adolescents
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 0047-2891
1573-6601
Household income predicts early adolescents’ cognitive development. However, the mechanism underlying this association and protective factors are unclear. This study assessed one-year longitudinal data to examine whether perceived discrimination mediated the association between household income and executive function and the moderating role of shift-and-persist. 344 early adolescents in rural China were included in the study (mean = 10.88 years, SD = 1.32 years, girls: 51.74%). The latent variable model revealed that household income predicted early adolescents’ cognitive flexibility and working memory in the subsequent year through perceived discrimination. Shift-and-persist moderated the negative effects of perceived discrimination on cognitive flexibility: perceived discrimination impeded cognitive flexibility only among early adolescents with low shift-and-persist. The findings highlight perceived discrimination in the relation between household income and early adolescents’ executive function and underscore the protective role of shift-and-persist.