The Effect of Financial Stress on Inhibitory Control and Economic Decisions - Stage 1 Registered Report

Financial scarcity, both real and imagined, is associated with impaired executive functions and present-focused economic decisions. What is the mechanism that connects the lack of financial resources to these cognitive and behavioral effects? The present work will test the hypothesis that the experience of financial stress contributes to these deficits by reducing executive functions related to self-control and causing present-focused, real-world economic decisions. In a preliminary experiment (N = 215), we found support for the hypothesis that financial stress (as compared to social stress) causes a reduction in inhibitory control performance. In a registered study, we will recruit participants from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and assess their inhibitory control performance before and after a financial stress manipulation, and assess their economic preferences via both a survey and real-world measure of temporal discounting. Similar results in the proposed study would provide evidence that financial stress can help explain SES-based differences in self-control.