Exploring the Relationship Between Experiences of Homelessness with Cognitive and Social Cognitive Functioning

Introduction: People experiencing homelessness have higher rates of physical and mental health conditions when compared to the general population. Cognitive functioning of people who are homeless is also a widely studied area in research, and is affected by a number of co-occurring experiences such as traumatic brain injury, health status, and substance misuse. Very few studies have explored social cognition in the context of homelessness. Social cognition carries huge implications for our functioning in social groups, and therefore it is important to understand if this is an area of difficulty for homeless populations.

Aims: The present study sought to understand the cognitive and social cognitive profile of a group of people experiencing homelessness, and to what extent cognitive and social cognitive functions are related.

Method: Forty-one people experiencing homelessness and accessing support from a charitable organisation completed a neuropsychological battery of optimal ability, cognition, and social cognition. A cross-sectional correlational design was used, and participant data was compared to normative data for each test.

Results: Analysis revealed impairments in objective measures of social cognition, as well as on a number of cognitive tasks. There were some notable correlations between performance on cognition and social cognition tasks, however cognition variables contributed only a small amount of variance to performance on tasks of social cognition.

Discussion: These findings are the first to comprehensively explore social cognition in people experiencing homelessness and highlight an additional area of need. Results are supportive of a domain-specific theory of social cognition. Implications for clinical practice, funding, and policy are discussed.