Data_Sheet_1_A Difference of Past Self-Evaluation Between College Students With Low and High Socioeconomic Status: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials.zip

Socioeconomic status (SES) refers to the social position or class according to their material and non-material social resources. We conducted a study with 60 college students to explore whether SES affects past self-evaluation and used event-related potentials (ERPs) in a self-reference task that required participants to judge whether the trait adjectives (positive or negative) describing themselves 5 years ago were appropriate for them. Behavioral data showed that individuals’ positive past self-evaluations were significantly higher than individuals’ negative past self-evaluations, regardless of high or low SES. Individuals with high SES had significantly higher positive past self-evaluations than those with low SES. ERP data showed that in the low SES group, negative adjectives elicited a marginally greater N400 amplitude than positive adjectives; in the high SES group, negative adjectives elicited a greater late positive potential (LPP) amplitude than positive adjectives. N400 is an index of the accessibility of semantic processing, and a larger N400 amplitude reflects less fluent semantic processing. LPP is an index of continuous attention during late processing; the larger LPP amplitude is elicited, the more attention resources are invested. Our results indicated that compared with college students with low SES, the past self-evaluations of college students with high SES were more positive; college students with high SES paid more attention to negative adjectives. However, college students with low SES were marginally less fluent in processing negative adjectives.

社会经济地位（Socioeconomic Status, SES）指个体基于物质与非物质社会资源所界定的社会位置或社会阶层。本研究纳入60名大学生，旨在探究社会经济地位对过往自我评估的影响；实验采用自我参照任务范式，要求被试判断用以描述自身5年前状态的特质形容词（积极或消极）是否契合彼时的自我，并同步采集事件相关电位（Event-Related Potentials, ERPs）数据。行为学结果显示，无论社会经济地位高低，个体的积极过往自我评估得分均显著高于消极过往自我评估得分；且高社会经济地位群体的积极过往自我评估得分显著高于低社会经济地位群体。事件相关电位分析结果表明：在低社会经济地位组中，消极形容词引发的N400波幅较积极形容词边际显著更高；而在高社会经济地位组中，消极形容词引发的晚正电位（Late Positive Potential, LPP）波幅显著高于积极形容词。其中，N400是语义加工通达性的指标，波幅越大代表语义加工流畅性越低；晚正电位（LPP）是晚期加工阶段持续注意的指标，其波幅越大意味着投入的注意资源越多。本研究结果显示，相较于低社会经济地位大学生，高社会经济地位大学生的过往自我评估更为积极，且高社会经济地位群体对消极形容词投入了更多的注意资源；而低社会经济地位群体在加工消极形容词时，语义流畅性略低。