How risk-averse are you? The answer might be based on how you and your brain adapted to the environment you grew up in, according to researchers in the College of Human Ecology (CHE).
They found people who are socially rich, with strong social support but whose family had less money, and those who are economically rich, having more money but less social support, take similar levels of risk but activate different parts of their brains.
This approach is novel because adversities like a lack of social support or money tend to be grouped together in studies instead of being viewed as discrete factors.
The study, published July 4 in Cerebral Cortex, was written by Minwoo Lee, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Human Ecology (CHE). Lee is a member of the Life History Lab led by Marlen Z. Gonzalez, assistant professor of psychology in CHE and a co-author.
"Distinct early-life environments may offer you different types of resources, and different strategies, to solve common problems in life," said Lee. "This, over time, may shape the specific cognitive mechanisms or contextual factors people rely on to solve similar problems as adults."
"And it is important to include resources as part of that equation," said Gonzalez. "There are multiple resources that can be used to overcome stressors and adversity."
They sought to understand how people may leverage the different types of resources and challenges encountered during their youth - what they call developmental resource asymmetry - and if those resources and experiences influence choices later in life.
The study involved 43 Cornell students. While an all-student sample may not normally be ideal, the researchers said it was a strength of this study.
"That's because you have individuals who have variability in their experiences, but end up coming together in the same place: here on campus," said Gonzalez. "I tend to think of psychological costs and behaviors as tactics and strategies they use to navigate the world around them."
The participants took part in a computerized risk-taking game while undergoing fMRI brain scans. In the game, they pumped virtual balloons to earn money, 5 cents per pump. At any point, they could choose to cash out. There were three types of balloons: a risky balloon that could pop anytime, losing all collected earnings; a safe balloon that delivered a guaranteed reward when pumped to the end; and a neutral balloon that yielded no gain or loss. The authors were particularly interested in brain activity associated with risk-taking - that is, when participants pressed buttons despite the risk of losing rewards.
Participants then completed a survey that gathered their demographic details and the resources available to them both in the past and currently, including their parents' income during childhood, how they perceived their childhood neighborhood's quality and safety, their current economic resources, and the level of social support they recently got from family and friends.
The survey data placed participants into two categories: socially rich and economically rich.
Lee and Gonzalez found no differences in risk-taking tendencies between groups; however, they observed that activity in a brain region called the supramarginal gyrus increased in participants who were more cautious, suggesting it may serve as a neural "brake" on risky behavior.
But there were some key differences in the brain activity of the socially rich group. First, when they took risks, areas in the brain involved in visual and attention processing were more active for this group. And the level of brain activity in those areas depended on their current social resources; those with more current social support had less additional brain activity, took more risks and earned more money than those in the socially rich group who had less social support.
"We're able to show that there is some common mechanism that's involved across both groups that helps them engage in risk-taking situations," said Lee. "But there seems to be this calibration process that is not necessarily about the outcome behavior itself, but how individuals get there. Even though they behaved similarly, they were relying on differential neural and contextual mechanisms to take risks."
Insight into how social and economic experiences in childhood can shape one's developmental calibration could help tailor support to individuals, whether through public policy, community investment or even student support services, the researchers said.
"In an ideal world, you'd have a university system that gives the economic and social support that every student needs," said Gonzalez. "You can emphasize the things they know how to utilize that may be missing. For example, if you have students who were socially rich, but are missing that here on campus, focus on increasing the level of social support and maybe they won't have to work twice as hard for the same outcome."
Juan Vazquez-Leddon is the communications director for the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.
