British boys from wealthier families typically perform better in tests of their thinking skills than those from less affluent backgrounds, according to research.

But a comparison of children in Hong Kong, mainland China and the UK indicated that the connection between executive functions and socio-economic status was far less direct for British girls, and absent altogether among boys and girls from China and Hong Kong.

Despite being generally less affluent, young people from China and Hong Kong consistently outperformed their British peers in tests.

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Executive functions are the mental skills, such as flexible-thinking and self-control, that help people to meet goals.

They are mediated by the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which develops into a person’s mid-20s.

The research suggests that cultural factors may shape the acquisition of executive functions, but it is not clear what these factors are.

Possibilities include differences in curriculum, parenting or attitudes to education.

The comparison was conducted by a team of academics from the Faculty of Education and the Centre for Family Research at Cambridge University.

Dr Michelle Ellefson, reader in cognitive science at the Faculty of Education, said: “Based on other research, we might have anticipated a direct link between socio-economic status and executive functions; in fact, this existed only for British boys.

“Pretty much any test pupils do at school requires executive functions, so if we want to reduce the achievement gap between children from different backgrounds, it’s important that we understand the mechanisms behind that relationship.”

Claire Hughes, professor of developmental psychology in the Centre for Family Research, said: “There is concern in the UK that among children from less-advantaged backgrounds, boys in particular often under-perform academically, and the possibility has been raised in some research that features of their home environment play a role in this.

“What is interesting here is that we saw no relationship between socio-economic status and executive functions for boys in Hong Kong and China.

“We need to investigate why that might be the case.”

The research was part of the Family Thinking Skills project, which is exploring links between executive functions, school attainment and cultural differences in Britain and Hong Kong by comparing data from children and parents in both countries.

Initially researchers used data from 835 children aged nine to 16 living in Hong Kong and the UK.

Participants completed computer-based thinking games to test their executive functions, and various mathematical tests to assess numeracy.

Data about socio-economic status was also provided by their parents and through a survey.

Because children in Hong Kong are highly adept with computers from an extremely young age, which might distort the results in the thinking skills tests, a second study was undertaken with 453 children in Shandong, China.

This deliberately targeted children whose use computers much less.

Both studies are published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.