Financial-Scarcity-Related Cues’ Impact on the Cognitive Performance of the Poor: a Meta-analysis

Prior research suggested that financial-scarcity-related cues disproportionately impede thecognitive performance of the poor, but later studies questioned the extent and even theexistence of this effect. In the present paper, we conducted a systematic review and a Bayesianmeta-analysis to resolve the inconsistencies in the literature to predict when and to what extentthe effect appears. First, our results show that the evidence is inconclusive about the existenceof the disproportionate effect of financial-scarcity-related cues on the cognitive performanceof the poor, and if the effect exists, the overall effect size is relatively small (g = 0.08 [-0.05,0.21]). Second, we found that the study designs of the identified studies were homogeneous,and the potential moderators were often not measured or reported. As a consequence, thegeneralisability of the findings in the literature is limited. While we conclude that furtherempirical investigations are needed to understand the extent and the boundary conditions of theeffect, we provide directly applicable recommendations for future research on the topic.