What Childhood Leaves Behind: Cognitive Ability and Trust in Adulthood

This paper challenges the idea that cognitive ability uniformly predicts prosocial traits. Using data from a large, nationally representative U.K. sample (N= 24,140), we test a moderated mediation model in which childhood disadvantage is associated with generalized trust both directly and indirectly via cognitive ability, while also moderating the association between cognitive ability and trust. We find that childhood disadvantage is associated with lower cognitive ability—measured across memory, verbal fluency, fluid reasoning, and numerical reasoning—and with lower generalized trust in adulthood. We also find that cognitive ability is positively associated with generalized trust; however, this relationship is significantly attenuated among those who experienced childhood disadvantage. These results persist after adjusting for current socioeconomic factors. The pattern whereby early-life disadvantaged environments are associated with differences in cognitive development and with constrained social returns to cognitive ability is likely to reinforce social immobility.