Food Insecurity, Cognitive Control, and Risky Choice

David Dickinson () and Jacob Norwood
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David Dickinson: Appalachian State University
Jacob Norwood: Appalachian State University

No 18841, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: Food insecurity affects roughly 18 million people in the United States and 2.3 billion globally. Given its prevalence, this study aims to examine how food insecurity and resulting anxiety affect cognitive control and decision-making. Samples of n=102 food-insecure and n=102 food-secure individuals were recruited from the Prolific online subject pool to complete an incentivized Stroop Task and a Monetary Risk Taking task. Randomized treatment assignments administered either a High or Low Cognitive Load manipulation prior to decision making by prompting participants to consider a more or less expensive unexpected financial expense. While food insecurity did not impact cognitive control and risky choices as hypothesized, it may indirectly affect outcomes via anxiety. And, exploratory analysis of response times data suggest food insecurity may promote some increased risk taking due to less deliberative decision processing. The role of anxiety and its effect on choice process among the food-insecure likely merits further investigation.

Keywords: food insecurity; cognitive load; anxiety; cognitive control; risky-choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D00 D91 I30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-07
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18841

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