Developing Mechanisms of Temperamental Effortful Control

Abstract

Studies of temperament from early childhood to adulthood have demonstrated inverse relationships between negative affectivity and effortful control. Effortful control is also positively related to the development of conscience and appears as a protective factor in the development of behavior disorders. In this study, the development of attentional mechanisms underlying effortful control was investigated in 2- to 3-year-old children, as indexed by their performance in a) making anticipatory eye movements to ambiguous locations and b) resolving conflict between location and identity in a spatial conflict task. The ability to make anticipatory eye movements to ambiguous locations within a sequence was clearly present at 24 months. By 30 months, children could also successfully perform a spatial conflict task that introduced conflict between identity and location, and at that age, children's success on ambiguous anticipatory eye movements was related to lower interference from conflict in the spatial conflict task. Children's performance on the eye-movement task was correlated with performance and reaction time on spatial tasks, and both were related to aspects of effortful control and negative affect as measured in children's parent-reported temperament.

Biological Systems and the Development of Self-Regulation: Integrating Behavior, Genetics, and Psychophysiology

“…3,9,15,16,33,34 Effortful control refers to the child's volitional use of executive attention and involves the abilities of inhibitory control, detection of errors, and planfulness. For example, effortful control is involved when a child must wait before touching an attractive toy or when a child must whisper when something exciting is happening.…”

Changes in behavior and salivary cortisol after targeted cognitive training in typical 12-month-old infants.

“…However, direct causal relationships between early executive control and salivary cortisol levels have not previously been explored. One proposed causal mechanism underlying this relationship is that superior attention skills may allow the child to better regulate their Running Head: INFANT ATTENTION TRAINING 7 physiological reactivity by adopting self-regulation strategies in naturally occurring, stressful contexts (Aksan & Kochanska, 2004;Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, & Posner, 2003;Sheese, Rothbart, Posner, White, & Fraundorf, 2008). These include presenting unfamiliar, aversive masks to infants (Sheese et al, 2008) -or simply attending a labbased testing session, surrounded by unfamiliar people, places and equipment (Blair, 2010).…”

From early attachment to engagement with learning in school: The role of self-regulation and persistence.

“…For example, this perspective highlights the possibility that different traits emerge at different developmental phases, causally influence later-emerging traits over time, and may represent the manifestation of behavior under the control of distinct mechanisms, with distinct developmental antecedents. Rothbart, Ellis, Rueda, and Posner (2003), for example, have argued that temperament represents basic and early-emerging traits rooted in neurobiological systems that are influenced by genes and experience. Temperamental dispositions then causally influence the emergence of more generalized beliefs, attitudes and habits that progressively cohere into dimensions of personality.…”