ANALYSIS PAPER
1
ANALYSIS PAPER: CHILDHOOD POVERTY, CHRONIC STRESS, SELF-REGULATION,
& COPING ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS
Alicia Conklin
School of Behavioral Sciences, Liberty University
Author Note
Alicia Conklin, [email protected]
I have no conflicts of interests to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Alicia Conklin 1971
University Blvd., Lynchburg, VA 24515. Email: [email protected]
ANALYSIS PAPER
2
Childhood poverty is an ever-growing concern for our society. With the rise of poverty,
we have also begun to realize the impact on our children’s mental health. There have been
several studies conducted on the effects of poverty on children’s ability to self-regulate against
poverty and chronic stress. This analysis will review how chronic stress from poverty and other
family stressors affects the child’s ability to self-regulate and cope.
Family Stress and Poverty
It is important to keep in mind that the microsystem (McWhirter et al., 2017) of the child
has a powerful drive on their development. Because of this drive toward development, any
external factors (poverty, low education, high-crime areas) can affect the children as well
because it alters the family functioning (Duran et al., 2018). According to the Family Stress
Model (Duran et al., 2018) poverty increases the strain on a family which then affects the
children because of heightened conflict in the family. This can increase the harshness of the
parents towards their children (Evans & Kim, 2013).
Not only does poverty affect the family functioning, but living in these low-income
regions adds other external stressors the children must face as well (Evans & Kim, 2013). This
can include such things as lack of healthy food, high crime and pollution, and less safe areas to
engage in physical activity. It is important to consider that all of these early adversities affect or
test their ability to cope successfully, thus leading to chronic stress (Wesarg et al., 2020).
Allostatic Load
Allostatic load is a concept that was introduced in 1993 by McEwen and Stellar (Guidi et
al., 2020). This is an expression of the amount of depletion one’s body experiences from being
repeatedly exposed to repeating and/or chronic environmental stresses (Evan & Kim, 2013;
Guidi et al., 2020). Repeated exposure to this chronic stress causes a disruption in one’s
ANALYSIS PAPER
3
allostasis, or their ability to maintain stability through the changes occurring around them (Guidi
et al., 2020, Wesarg et al., 2020). Guidi et al. (2020) goes on to explain that as the stressors
around an individual erode one’s allostasis, and exceed their ability to cope, allostatic overload
occurs. This is an intensive state where their stress response systems (ie, Hypothalamic pituitary
adrenal axis or HPA) are continuously active and cannot defend properly.
Self-Regulation
Childhood poverty affects the regulatory systems that are in place to manage the many
external factors that come alongside it (Evans & Kim, 2013). Because of these effects, many of
these children struggle with attention control, delayed gratification, poor working memory, and
less self-control. Duran et al. (2018) expressed that self-regulatory outcomes like executive
functioning and delayed gratification, are also important in predicting how the child will function
in social-emotional and academic situations. Duran et al. (2018) continue with the idea that
because there is an adaptive nature to self-regulation development, it may explain why those
children in poverty have weaker executive functioning and delayed gratification than those not in
poverty.
Another area that may also affect a child’s developing self-regulatory development is that
of parental investment (Evans & Kim, 2013). This may be because low-income parents do not
talk to their children as often, leading to poor development of language skills. Poor language
skills in turn affect the child’s ability to accurately express their emotions or communicate
effectively with those around them. Wesarg et al. (2020) explain that even in the midst of
hardship, having parents that are responsive may help them learn to cope with the stressful
circumstances around them.
ANALYSIS PAPER
4
Coping
Mayo et al. (2022) state that, “traditionally, coping has been defined as volitional or
effortful cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and/or psychological responses to a stressful or
challenging situation or event intended to regulate the individual or the situation.” Adverse
external factors, leading to chronic stress, can cause maladaptive coping strategies for children
(Evans & Kim, 2013). This means that they have learned to utilize more disengaged coping
strategies than their more adaptive counterparts.
Disengaged coping strategies include avoidance and/or withdrawal from stressful
situations. Because they attempt to ignore or remove themselves from what is going on, it tends
to “elevate internalizing, externalizing, and social difficulties among low-income children”
(Evans & Kim, 2013). This again returns us to the concept of allostasis, and one’s ability to
achieve stability in those systems said to regulate stress.
Psychological changes, like the release of glucocorticoids, prepare the body to handle the
energy needed to handle a stressful event. Remaining in this state for too long causes alterations
to the stress mediators. This causes too much strain on the body resulting in pathologies likely
developing (Mayo et al., 2022). Theories have been proposed that suggest stress physiology may
cause lower cognitive abilities. This is because it is believed that glucocorticoids may disrupt the
development of neural activities and brain structures that underlie self-regulation (Mayo et al.,
2022).
Summary
Poverty is a human condition that is unavoidable for some that can cause many other
external stressors to arise. For our young people, this can come with additional family stress,
such as; living in high-crime areas, reduced access to healthy food, and low education. Each of
ANALYSIS PAPER
5
these added stressors for the family affects the children by exposing them to chronic stress. This
chronic stress can also be the result of heightened family conflict caused by these external
factors.
Heightened family conflict and chronic stress can cause a disruption to the child’s state of
allostasis, or their ability to maintain stability in their current situations. This disruption is called
allostatic overload. Allostatic overload is an extreme state where one is unable to turn off their
stress response systems. One of these response systems that is affected is the HPA axis.
Because of these changes to the stress-mediating systems, the ability to self-regulate and
cope is altered as well. The lack of self-regulation affects the children’s ability to pay attention,
delay gratification, have a good working memory, and have self-control. Parental investment is
also said to affect the child’s ability to self-regulate as well. Many of these lead to a disengaged
coping style, where they tend to withdraw and/or avoid the stressful situations around them.
Because of this disengaged coping they are more prone to developing psychological or
pathological symptoms.
We can now see that poverty in childhood most certainly can affect the child’s ability to
self-regulate, manage chronic stress, and cope in these situations.
ANALYSIS PAPER
6
Reference
Duran, C. A. K., Cottone, E., Ruzek, E. A., Mashburn, A. J., & Grissmer, D. W. (2018). Family
Stress Processes and children’s self‐regulation. Child Development, 91(2), 577–595.
https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13202
Evans, G. W., & Kim, P. (2012). Childhood poverty, chronic stress, self-regulation, and coping.
Child Development Perspectives, 7(1), 43–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12013
Guidi, J., Lucente, M., Sonino, N., & Fava, G. A. (2020). Allostatic load and its impact on
Health: A Systematic Review. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 90(1), 11–27.
https://doi.org/10.1159/000510696
Mayo, C. O., Pham, H., Patallo, B., Joos, C. M., & Wadsworth, M. E. (2022). Coping with
poverty-related stress: A narrative review. Developmental Review, 64, 101024.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2022.101024
McWhirter, A. C., McWhirter, B. T., McWhirter, E. H., & McWhirter, J. J. (2017). At-risk
youth: A comprehensive response for counselors, teachers, psychologists, and Human
Service Professionals (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Wesarg, C., Van Den Akker, A. L., Oei, N. Y., Hoeve, M., & Wiers, R. W. (2020). Identifying
pathways from early adversity to psychopathology: A review on dysregulated Hpa Axis
functioning and impaired self-regulation in early childhood. European Journal of
Developmental Psychology, 17(6), 808–827.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17405629.2020.1748594
