Fig. 6

Feedback loop: tax on cognitive bandwidth caused by the stress response and chronic stress. This feedback loop demonstrates the reciprocal relationship between stressor exposure, which people exposed to adverse socioeconomic conditions are recurrently subjected to, and cognitive bandwidth under stress. As cognitive bandwidth is a finite resource and each stressor takes up cognitive bandwidth, an accumulation of stressors can prevent people from addressing some of the stressors. The impossibility to deal with them all at once and the trade-off that therefore needs to be made can leave some of the stressors unresolved, which then keep taking up cognitive bandwidth