Parental Perceptions of Aggressive Behavior in Preschoolers: Inhibitory Control Moderates the Association With Negative Emotionality

Cognitive Control Moderates Associations Between Domains of Temperamental Reactivity and Preschoolers' Social Behaviors

Temperamental characteristics and emerging cognitive control are meaningful predictors of children's development of adaptive and maladaptive social behaviors during the preschool period. However, knowledge of the interplay of these pathways, when examined concurrently to highlight their individual contributions, is limited. Using a cross-sectional sample of 3-year-old children, we examined parent-reported discrete traits of negative (anger, fear, sadness, and shyness) and positive (low- and high-intensity pleasure) temperamental reactivity as predictors of children's prosociality and physical aggression. Further, we tested whether the effects of discrete temperament were moderated by cognitive control, as indexed by the N2 event-related potential, during a go/no-go task. Analyses focus on a subsample of children with an observable N2 (n = 66). When controlling for other relative temperament traits, several significant main effects emerged. Moreover, at low cognitive control (smaller N2), fear was negatively associated with aggression, whereas at high cognitive control, sadness was positively associated with aggression. Heightened anger was linked to reduced prosocial behavior when cognitive control was low but linked to greater prosocial behavior when cognitive control was high. The results highlight that discrete temperament traits predict individual differences in child outcomes but that associations depend on concurrent levels of cognitive control.

Maternal Phubbing and Problematic Media Use in Preschoolers: The Independent and Interactive Moderating Role of Children's Negative Affectivity and Effortful Control

Purpose

Given that mother plays the main nurturing role in a family unit and their unique influence on children's development, the current study aimed to examine the influence of maternal phubbing on children's problematic media use and the independent and interactive moderating role of children's negative affectivity and effortful control.

Methods

Participants were 1986 children aged 3 to 6 years in Shanghai, China. Their mothers were asked to complete a series of questionnaires including parental phubbing scale, problematic media use measure, and child behavior questionnaire. To investigate the moderating influence of children's negative affectivity and effortful control, hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted using SPSS 24.0. Simple slopes analyses and the Johnson-Neyman technique were further used to depict moderation effects.

Results

Maternal phubbing was associated with higher levels of problematic media use in preschool children (β = 0.18, p <.001, [0.14, 0.22]). Children's negative affectivity acts as a risk factor, exacerbating the adverse effects of maternal phubbing on children's problematic media use (β = 0.05, t = 2.69, p < 0.05), whereas children's effortful control acts as a protective factor, buffering the link between maternal phubbing and children's problematic media use (β = -0.10, t = -5.00, p < 0.001).

Conclusion

These results suggest that interventions seeking to promote appropriate digital development in preschoolers should take the child's temperament into account and be complemented by active parental mediation and involvement.

Development of working memory and inhibitory control in early childhood: Cross-sectional analysis by age intervals and gender in Ecuadorian preschoolers

Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) play a crucial role in learning during early childhood. The literature suggests a non-linear developmental trajectory of executive functions (EFs) with varied results according to gender, usually attributed to environmental factors. However, there is insufficient and inconclusive data on whether this pattern is reproduced in the Latin American preschool population since most studies have been conducted in English-speaking, European, and Asian environments. Thus, objectively comparing children's executive performance across diverse international geographical contexts becomes challenging. This study aimed to conduct a cross-sectional analysis of the performance in WM and IC of 982 Ecuadorian preschoolers aged between 42 and 65 months (M = 53.71; SD = 5.714) and belonging to medium-high, medium, and low-medium socioeconomic strata. The participants consisted of 496 boys (M = 53.77; SD = 5.598) and 486 girls (M = 53.65; SD = 5.834), representing nine cities in Ecuador. To assess the effect of age and gender on performance in these two domains, the sample was divided into four 6-month age intervals. Two tests were administered to the participants, and a survey was conducted with 799 of their usual caregivers. Viewing the cross-sectional mean scores of the WM and IC tests as a temporal continuum reveals an upward trend in each age interval studied. Girls outperformed boys on the IC test, showing statistically significant differences in the earliest age interval. The gender differences in executive performance reported in the literature emphasize the need to explore the modulating effect of environmental variables on early childhood development. This information could offer valuable insights for adapting and optimizing cognitive and didactic strategies in early childhood tailored to the characteristics and needs of the preschool population.

The longitudinal contributions of child language, negative emotionality, and maternal positive affect on toddler executive functioning development

Executive functions (EF) develop rapidly across early childhood and play a prominent role in promoting adaptive outcomes later in development. Although the existing literature suggests that the development of early EF is sensitive to the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic factors, limited research has examined the joint contributions of multiple child and contextual factors in infancy/toddlerhood. The purpose of our longitudinal study was therefore to identify early environmental, behavioral, biologically-based factors that influence children's EF outcomes in late toddlerhood. Participants included 409 mother-child dyads (209 girls) and the data was collected across children's first three postnatal years. Parent-report measures were used to assess infant negative affectivity (5-months; IBQ-R) and toddler language (age 2; MCDI), and both maternal positive affect (5-months) and toddler frustration (age 2) were coded during mother-child interaction tasks. A battery of behavioral tasks was used to measure child EF in late toddlerhood (age 3). After controlling for maternal education (a proxy for children's socio-economic environment), path analysis indicated that both infant and maternal affect at 5-months directly predicted toddlers' language skills and frustration expression at age 2. Toddler language (but not frustration) also predicted child performance on multiple EF tasks at age 3. Finally, 5-month infant and maternal affect indirectly predicted age 3 EF via age 2 language. Our results identify language as a mechanism through which children's early caregiving environment influences their EF development. Taken together, these findings illustrate the importance of applying a biopsychosocial perspective to the examination of early childhood EF development.

Inhibitory Control in Early Childhood Aggression Subtypes: Mediation by Irritability

The present study tested irritability as a mediator of inhibitory control's (IC) associations with crossed form and function aggression subtypes over one year in early childhood (N = 300, M_age = 44.70 months, SD = 4.38 months). We hypothesized lower IC would predict increases in irritability, which would in turn predict increases in aggression overall (severity) and a predominance of reactive over proactive subtypes (directionality), and considered moderation by gender. Irritability mediated IC's relations in the predicted direction for physical severity for girls only and relational severity for both genders. Lower IC predicted increases in irritability, which in turn predicted increasing predominance of reactive over proactive physical and relational aggression. The predicted indirect effect was significant for physical but not relational directionality. Findings highlight the viability of directionality scores for disentangling these effects, and that developmental associations between IC, irritability, and reactive functions of aggression are evident in early childhood.

Inhibitory deficits and symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: How are they related to effortful control?

Separate studies with clinical and community-based samples have identified an association between symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and inhibitory control deficits and ADHD and weak effortful control. We tested whether differences in effortful control explained the associations between ADHD symptoms and inhibitory control deficits, controlling for conduct problems. In a community sample, parents rated ADHD symptoms, conduct problems, effortful control, surgency and negative affect in 77 4-7-year-olds (47 girls), who performed an inhibitory control task. ADHD symptoms, deficient inhibitory control and low effortful control were correlated. Controlling for conduct problems, path analysis showed the ADHD symptoms - inhibitory control link was mediated statistically by effortful control. This focuses attention on cognitive-energetic factors associated with ADHD-related executive deficits.

Head start parents' vocational preparedness indirectly predicts preschoolers' physical and relational aggression

Severe poverty has profound impacts on child outcomes, yet much of the research on poverty fails to consider the psychological experiences of poverty, frames low-socioeconomic status families as a monolith, and until recently, has not considered the utility of behavior within the poverty context. This short-term (4 months) longitudinal study was designed to consider children's aggression as predicted by their inhibitory control (IC) and parents' experiences of poverty-related strain in an urban Head Start sample. At Time 1, parents reported on their family's economic situation (income, family size), education, vocational preparedness, and completed a measure of psychological economic strain; children (N = 90; Mage = 52.78 months) completed two IC tasks (Day/Night Stroop; Whisper). Four months later, parents completed the Preschool Proactive and Reactive Aggression survey, used to assess children's physical and relational aggression. Mediation analyses supported that physical and relational aggression were both fully mediated from parents' vocational preparedness, though through different mechanisms. Physical aggression was mediated by parents' psychological economic strain. Relational aggression was mediated through children's IC. Findings support the proposal that aggression should be viewed within context and that typical assumptions about developmental patterns of physical aggression may not hold for all children.

Developmental Cascades of Preschoolers' Effortful Control, Externalizing Behaviors, and Parental Corporal Punishment in China

This research examined the interrelations among children's effortful control, externalizing behaviors, and parental corporal punishment in China. Two hundred and five father-mother dyads of preschoolers (initial M_age = 3.73 years, 50% boys) completed measures of children's effortful control, externalizing behaviors, and parental corporal punishment at three time points with 1-year intervals in between. In developmental cascade models, only unidirectional direct relations between variables were found: preschoolers' effortful control negatively predicted externalizing behaviors a year later, and preschoolers' externalizing behaviors positively predicted maternal and paternal corporal punishment a year later. Moreover, although no direct relations between preschoolers' effortful control and parental corporal punishment were found, a potential indirect pathway from effortful control to paternal corporal punishment through externalizing behaviors was observed. The findings are discussed in terms of their cultural basis and highlight the importance of efforts to strengthen children's self-regulation during early childhood.

Private Speech and the Development of Self-Regulation: The Importance of Temperamental Anger

In this study (N=160), we observed children's private (i.e., self-directed) speech (PS) during a challenging puzzle task at age 3 and assessed whether the amount and maturity of their PS predicted their inhibitory control (IC) at age 4 and indirectly emotion regulation at age 9. Additionally, we examined whether the direct and indirect effects of PS were moderated by children's temperament. As expected, the maturity of children's PS was positively associated with IC and this association was stronger when children were reported as higher in anger reactivity by mothers (the interaction accounting for 11% of the explained variance). Children low in temperamental anger tend to have good IC and may not need to use PS. When children were at or above the mean on anger reactivity, PS maturity was indirectly associated with better emotion regulation at age 9 through an influence on IC at age 4 (index of moderated mediation =1.03 [.10, 3.60]). Findings suggest that PS is an important self-regulatory tool for 3-year-olds who typically experience and express anger.

Intergenerational Transmission of Corporal Punishment: The Independent and Interactive Moderating Role of Children's Negative Affectivity and Effortful Control

The present study examined the independent and interactive moderating effects of children's negative affectivity (NA) and effortful control (EC) on the relations between parental childhood history of corporal punishment (CP) and their current use of CP. A total of 634 Chinese father-mother dyads with preschoolers (M age = 4.69 years, 53.8% boys) reported on their experience of CP in childhood, their current use of CP toward children, and their children's NA and EC. For both mothers and fathers, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that children's NA and EC independently and interactively moderated the relations between parental childhood history of CP and their current use of CP. Specifically, high NA intensified but high EC weakened the relations between parental childhood history of CP and their current use of CP. Moreover, high EC also weakened the intensifying effect of NA, with the intergenerational stability of CP being weakest and even disrupted when children were at low NA and high EC meanwhile. Findings from the present study highlight the importance of considering how the child factor may influence the intergenerational transmission of CP.

Effortful control moderates the relation between negative emotionality and socially appropriate behavior

The current study investigated the relation between negative emotionality and socially appropriate behavior in a diverse sample of preschool and kindergarten children (N = 74). More specifically, we tested whether effortful control would moderate this relation. A computerized task measured children's effortful control by assessing their accuracy in shifting attention between different emotionally valenced faces (happy and angry) while inhibiting their responses to neutral faces. Teachers completed the Affect Intensity Scale-Child Version to assess child negative emotionality as well as the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales to assess two aspects of socially appropriate behavior (social cooperation and inhibition of externalizing behavior). Regression analyses indicated that children with high negative emotionality and strong effortful control had fewer externalizing problems and greater social cooperation compared with their counterparts with weaker effortful control. These findings support and extend previous research suggesting that effortful control may protect children, particularly those with high negative emotionality, from poor social outcomes. A novel contribution of this study is its use of an attention shifting task that incorporates emotionally salient stimuli. These findings have important implications for educators working with young children who encounter increased expectations for regulating their behavior during preschool and kindergarten.

Prenatal risk and physical aggression during the first years of life: The gender-specific role of inhibitory control

Prenatal risk and a lack of inhibitory control have consistently been related to the development of physical aggression in older children. This study examined whether inhibitory control mediated the relation between prenatal risk and aggression in infants and toddlers. The role of gender in this mediation model was also examined. The sample consisted of 161 mother-child dyads (83 boys). A prenatal cumulative risk score was created from a number of well-established risk factors including maternal psychopathology, substance use, and social and socioeconomic disadvantages. At 12 months, children performed an inhibitory control task. Physical aggression was assessed through maternal reports at 12 and 20 months of age. Results showed that higher prenatal risk was associated with more physical aggression. Inhibitory control mediated this association at both 12 and 20 months: higher prenatal risk was related to lower inhibitory control, which in turn led to higher aggression. At 20 months, gender moderated the mediation effect: the mediating role of inhibitory control was only found for girls. These results suggest that even before 2 years of age, inhibitory control is an important construct involved in the relation between prenatal risk and physical aggression.

Aggressive behavior during toddlerhood: Interrelated effects of prenatal risk factors, negative affect, and cognition

Prenatal risk, temperamental negative affect, and specific cognitive abilities have all individually been identified as predictors of behavior problems during early childhood, but less is known about their interplay in relation to aggression during toddlerhood. This study examined the main and interaction effects of prenatal risk, negative affect, inhibitory control, attention, and vocabulary in the prediction of aggression in 150 children (75 boys). During pregnancy, a cumulative risk index was calculated based on the presence of 10 well-established maternal risk factors, such as prenatal substance use, maternal psychiatric disorder, and financial problems. Negative affect was measured at 6 and 20 months using maternal report. Child cognition was examined at 30 months using laboratory tasks for inhibitory control and attention, and a questionnaire was administered to assess vocabulary. In addition, mothers reported on their children's aggressive behavior at 30 months. Higher prenatal risk and negative affect at 20 months and, to a lesser extent, at 6 months were related to more aggression at 30 months. Poorer inhibitory control and, to a lesser extent, vocabulary at 30 months also predicted higher levels of aggressive behavior. Two-way interaction effects were found for cumulative risk and inhibitory control, negative affect (at 20 months) and inhibitory control, and negative affect (at 6 months) and vocabulary: aggressive behavior was most pronounced when combinations of high prenatal risk, high negative affect, and poor cognition were present. These results suggest that the impact of prenatal risk and child temperament depends in part on child's cognitive development during toddlerhood.

The Role of Inhibitory Control, Attention and Vocabulary in Physical Aggression Trajectories From Infancy to Toddlerhood

Physical aggression has its origin very early in development, but no studies to date have examined physical aggression trajectories starting before the age of 1.5 years. This study examined whether cognition plays a role in the development of physical aggression from infancy onward. In a sample of 182 mother-child dyads (94 boys; 88 girls), child physical aggression was assessed by maternal report using the Physical Aggression Scale for Early Childhood at 12, 20, and 30 months. Children performed cognitive tasks measuring inhibitory control and attention, and mothers rated children's vocabulary at 12 and 30 months. Results showed that differential development of physical aggression already starts at 12 months of age: low-stable, low-increasing, moderate-decreasing and high-stable trajectory groups were identified. Inhibitory control, attention and vocabulary at 12 months and development of these abilities from 12 to 30 months were selectively related to the likelihood of following the low-increasing and moderate-decreasing trajectories compared to the low-stable physical aggression trajectory. This study is the first to show that specific aspects of cognition and cognitive development are related to differential physical aggression development from infancy onward.

Inhibitory control moderates the quadratic association between resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia and prosocial behaviors in children

Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is thought to be an important physiological correlate of prosocial behaviors. A negative quadratic association between resting RSA and prosocial behaviors has been found in recent studies. However, it remains unknown whether inhibitory control (IC), as an aspect of cognitive regulation, moderates this quadratic association. This issue was examined in the present study. One hundred and forty-eight children (81 girls, 54.7%) aged 7-8 years completed a go/no-go task to assess their IC, and the children's parents completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire-Chinese version (SDQ-CV) to assess children's prosocial behaviors. Resting RSA was calculated by electrocardiogram (ECG) data collected during a resting period in the laboratory. The results showed a significant quadratic association between resting RSA and children's prosocial behaviors. More importantly, IC had a significant moderating effect on the quadratic association between resting RSA and prosocial behaviors. Specifically, the quadratic effect of resting RSA on prosocial behaviors was observed only among children with low and average IC and disappeared in children with better IC. The findings suggest that IC interacts with resting RSA to contribute to prosocial behaviors in children. High levels of IC could attenuate the negative impact of high and low resting RSA on prosocial behaviors.

Longitudinal Association Between Children's Callous-Unemotional Traits and Social Competence: Child Executive Function and Maternal Warmth as Moderators

This study examined the longitudinal association between children's early callous-unemotional (CU) traits and social competence in the transition to school-age, and tested whether this relationship was moderated by child executive function and maternal warmth. Participants were 643 children (49% girls) who were part of the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC) of the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education (KICCE). Mothers rated children's CU at 5 years and executive function at 8 years, and maternal warmth at 5 years. Teachers reported on children's social competence at 8 years. Results of the model including child executive function as the moderator indicated that deficits in child executive function and child sex (boys) predicted lower social competence. In addition, the moderating effect of executive function on the relationship between CU and social competence approached a trend such that CU predicted lower social competence only for children with lower executive function. In the model that included maternal warmth as a moderator, CU traits was associated with lower social competence, and this effect was more pronounced for boys as indicated by a significant effects of CU × child sex on social competence. The findings are discussed with respect to considering individual and contextual factors by which early CU becomes associated with individual differences in children's social competence.

Maternal childhood emotional abuse predicts Chinese infant behavior problems: Examining mediating and moderating processes

The current study examined the mediating effect of maternal negative expressiveness as well as the moderating effects of infant inhibitory control (IC) in the association between maternal childhood emotional abuse (CEA) and infant behavior problems. Drawing from 207 families from mainland China, 2-wave data were reported in this study when the infants were 6 months (T1) and 14 (T2) months. Mothers (Mean age = 32.85 years, SD = 4.04) reported their CEA on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) at T1, and their negative expressiveness on the Self-Expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire (SEFQ) at T2. The Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA) and a reverse categorization task were used to measure infant behavior problems and IC at T2, respectively. The results showed that T1 maternal CEA, rather than physical and sexual abuse, uniquely predicted T2 negative expressiveness. Maternal negative expressiveness significantly mediated the positive relations of maternal CEA and infant externalizing, internalizing and dysregulation problems. In addition, the moderated mediation model showed that the association between maternal negative expressiveness and infant dysregulation problems was moderated by infant IC. Specifically, the mediating pathway from maternal CEA to dysregulation problems through maternal negative expressiveness was significant, only for infants with poor IC. The results were robust even after controlling for family socio-economic status (SES), maternal childhood physical and sexual abuse. The importance of mediating and moderating processes in understanding the effect of maternal emotional abuse during childhood on infant behavior problems is discussed.

Parental Education and Aggressive Behavior in Children: A Moderated-Mediation Model for Inhibitory Control and Gender

Aggressive behaviors are highly prevalent in children. Given their negative consequences, it is necessary to look for protective factors that prevent or reduce their progress in early development before they become highly unshakable. With a sample of 147 children, the present study aimed to assess the relation between parental education and inhibitory control in the aggressive behavior of children aged from 7 to 10 years. The participants completed a go/no-go task to assess inhibitory control, whilst their parents reported their education level, and their teachers rated the aggressive behavior of the children through the Teacher Rating Scale (TRS) of the Behavior Assessment System for Children 2 (BASC-2). The results showed that both parental education and inhibitory control determined aggressive behavior in children. In addition, inhibitory control partially mediated the associations between parental education and aggressive behavior after accounting for age. However, a moderated mediation model revealed that lower parental education was associated with higher levels of aggressive behavior, which, in girls occurred independently of inhibitory control. In contrast, inhibitory control mediated this relation in boys. These results suggest the importance of parental education and inhibitory control in the aggressive behavior of children, supporting the idea that both constructs are relevant for understanding these conduct problems in schools, particularly in boys. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed, along with possible future lines of investigation.

Pediatric Irritability: A Systems Neuroscience Approach

Irritability, defined as an increased propensity to exhibit increased anger relative to one's peers, is a common clinical problem in youth. Irritability can be conceptualized as aberrant responses to frustration (where frustration is the emotional response to blocked goal attainment) and/or aberrant 'approach' responses to threat. Irritable youth show hyper-reactivity to threat mediated by dysfunction in amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), insula, striatum, and association cortex. Irritable youth also show abnormalities in reward learning, cognitive control, and responses to frustration. These abnormalities are mediated by circuitry that includes the inferior frontal gyrus (iFG), striatum, ACC, and parietal cortex. Effective treatments for irritability are lacking, but pathophysiological research could lead to more precisely targeted interventions.

Maternal reflective functioning as a multidimensional construct: Differential associations with children's temperament and externalizing behavior

Maternal reflective functioning (RF) has been associated with children's behavioral development. This study examined maternal prenatal and postnatal RF, as measured by the Pregnancy Interview and Parent Development Interview, as multidimensional constructs. It was also examined whether the RF-dimensions were associated with children's temperament and externalizing behavior, as assessed by several questionnaires. The sample consisted of 123 first-time mothers (M age=22.85years, SD=2.21) and their children (M age=19.97months, SD=0.85, 56% male). Two related but distinct dimensions were found for prenatal RF, termed self-focused and child-focused mentalization. Three dimensions were observed for postnatal RF, termed self-focused, child-focused, and relation-focused mentalization. Results showed that prenatal RF negatively related to reported child physical aggression. Postnatal self-focused RF was positively linked to externalizing behavior and negative emotionality in offspring, while relation-focused RF scores were negatively associated with child physical aggression. Findings show that it is important to also look at the specific RF-dimensions when examining the effects of maternal RF on children's behavioral development, as differential associations with behavioral outcomes exist. Discussion further focuses on the importance of these findings in prevention and clinical practice, and suggestions are being made to further improve the measurement of maternal RF-dimensions.