Do Children with Better Inhibitory Control Donate More? Differentiating between Early and Middle Childhood and Cool and Hot Inhibitory Control

Inhibitory Control Training Improves Cold but Not Warm Cognition in Typically Developing Preschoolers

Inhibitory control, as a fundamental executive function, has been found to be associated with a range of cognitive processes. In this study, our objective was to enhance inhibitory control through a targeted training program and assess its impact on attention, executive function, delay discounting and risky decision making. Thirty-two typically-developing children (age mean 6.89 ± 0.32 years) were recruited in a random clinical trial design in two equal intervention and active control groups. Go/No-Go, Flanker, continuous performance, delay discounting, and balloon analogue risk tasks were used for assessment in three baseline, post- intervention, and 3-months follow-up sessions. The intervention group received the program for attentive rehabilitation of inhibition and selective attention (PARISA) and the active control group participated in a story telling class, both in 12 sessions. The results of the study indicate significant improvements in sustained attention, interference control, and prepotent inhibition among participants in the intervention group. However, there were no significant changes observed in delay discounting and risky decision making. These findings suggest that the inhibitory control training primarily enhances aspects of cold cognition and attentional processes. However, the observed improvements did not extend to reward processing or warm cognition.

Beyond empathy: Cognitive capabilities increase or curb altruism in middle childhood

Altruistic behavior, which intentionally benefits a recipient without expectation of a reward or at a cost to the actor, is observed throughout the lifespan from everyday interactions to emergency situations. Empathy has long been considered a major driver of altruistic action, but the social information processing model supports the idea that other cognitive processes may also play a role in altruistic intention and behavior. Our aim was to investigate how visual analysis, attention, inhibitory control, and theory of mind capabilities uniquely contribute to predicting altruistic intention and behavior in a sample of 67 French children (35 girls and 32 boys; Mage = 9.92 ± 0.99 years) from Paris and neighboring suburbs. Using a Bayesian analysis framework, we showed that in younger grade levels visual analysis and selective attention are strong predictors of altruistic intention and that inhibitory control strongly predicts altruistic behavior in a dictator game. Processes underlying theory of mind, however, negatively predict altruistic behavior in the youngest grade. In higher grade levels, we found that stronger attention and inhibitory control predicts lower altruistic intention and behavior. Empathy was not found to predict altruistic intention or behavior. These results suggest that different cognitive capabilities are involved in altruistic intention and behavior and that their contribution changes throughout middle childhood as social constraints deepen and altruism calls on more complex reasoning.

Development of prosocial behavior and inhibitory control in late childhood: A longitudinal exploration of sex differences and reciprocal relations

This study examined longitudinal development of prosocial behavior, assessed by the parent-reported Strength and Difficulty Questionnaire, and inhibitory control, measured by the Opposite Worlds Task, in a sample aged 9 and 12 years (n = 9468, 49.9% girls, 85.8% White) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. The goal was to assess whether the level of prosocial behavior at age 9 relates to change in inhibitory control, and vice versa. Sex differences were also explored. Latent change score models showed that low inhibitory control in boys at age 9 was associated with more decreases in prosocial behavior from 9 to 12 years of age. This may suggest that interventions targeting inhibitory control in boys may also foster their social competence.

To snack or not to snack: Using fNIRS to link inhibitory control to functional connectivity in the toddler brain

Inhibitory control (IC) emerges in infancy, continues to develop throughout childhood and is linked to later life outcomes such as school achievement, prosocial behavior, and psychopathology. Little, however, is known about the neural processes underpinning IC, especially in 2-year-olds. In this study, we examine functional connectivity (FC) in 2.5-year-olds while recording hemodynamic responses via functional infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) during a traditional snack delay task. We found that functional connectivity strength between left frontal and parietal cortex and bilateral parietal cortex were positively associated with performance on this task. The current findings present the first neural data for toddlers during this IC task. Further, these data are the first to link this self-regulatory process to differences in brain development within this population. Implications for future directions and work with clinical populations are discussed.

The Effects of Prosocial Cartoon Examples on Children's Donating Behavior

PURPOSE

In this study, we examined whether prosocial cartoons could inspire children to donate toys to others immediately upon exposure.

PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS

Cartoons were rated as prosocial or control via 80 adults. One hundred and fifty-six children participated in the study (M age = 5.29, SD = 0.79). Children in the experimental group were exposed to cartoons in which the main character had a large number of donating behaviors, while children in the control group watched cartoons without donating behaviors (randomized controlled study). They watched these cartoons for 4 consecutive days. Afterwards, children's donating behaviors toward their peers were assessed in the Toy Donation Task (TDT). An analytic method of 2 (cartoon: prosocial vs control) × 2 (gender: male vs female) × 3 (age: 4 vs 5 vs 6) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to make result analyses.

RESULTS

The empirical results indicated that watching cartoons specifically depicting charitable donations (and not cartoons with other prosocial content) increased donations for charitable causes, whilst watching the control cartoons (cartoons without prosocial content) which did not depict characters acting in an antisocial way did not increase donating behavior. Specifically, 5-year-old female children reported more donating behavior than 6-year-old female children and 4-year-old female children, whilst no significant age effects were found among male children. Here, 4-6-year-old female children and 4-5-year-old male children in the prosocial cartoon condition reported more donating behavior than those in the control cartoon condition.

CONCLUSION

These findings indicated an accumulating positive effect of watching cartoons with donating content on children's donating behavior, especially for 4-6-year-old female children and 4-5-year-old male children.

Neuropsychological Development of Cool and Hot Executive Functions Between 6 and 12 Years of Age: A Systematic Review

Previous studies on the development of executive functions (EFs) in middle childhood have traditionally focused on cognitive, or "cool," EFs: working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. However, knowledge of the development of socio-emotional, or "hot," EFs, such as delay of gratification, decision-making and theory of mind, is more limited. The main aims of this systematic review were to characterize the typical development of both the primary cool and hot EFs in middle childhood, and to identify the main tools for evaluating EFs as a whole. We conducted a systematic search on studies of cognitive and socio-emotional EFs published in the last 5 years in Pubmed, PsycInfo, and WoS databases. Of 44 studies selected, we found a variety of tasks measuring cool EFs, while measures of hot EFs were limited. Nevertheless, the available data suggest that cool and hot components follow distinct, but related, developmental trajectories during middle childhood.

Distributive Behavior Differences Between Ingroup and Outgroup and the Influence of Inhibitory Control and Intelligence on Preschoolers’ Distributive Behavior

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the patterns and characteristics of distributive behavior in preschoolers, influence of inhibitory control and intelligence on the distributive behavior, and associations between them.Methods: The data was collected through a one-on-one interview experiment with 328 children aged 3–5 years old attending daycare centers and kindergartens. The distributive behavior was measured by modifying the procedure of the dictator game. Children’s cognitive and emotional inhibitory control (IC) were assessed using the day-night task and the reverse compensation task respectively. The intelligence was assessed using the K-WPPSI short form test. Pearson's correlation, paired samples t-test, one-way ANOVA, McNemar test, multiple regression, and the verification of mediation were performed to analyze the dataResults: First, there were differences among boys in resource allocation according to the type of group (in-group vs. outgroup). That is, boys aged four and five gave more resources to classmates rather than anonymous children. Second, cognitive IC and performance intelligence were associated with distributive behavior towards anonymous children. However, only performance intelligence was related to the children’s distributive behavior towards their classmates. Lastly, performance intelligence was completely mediated in the association between cognitive IC and distributive behavior towards anonymous children.Conclusion: We provide empirical evidence that cognitive IC and thinking skills necessary for performance intelligence were related to distributive behavior towards outgroup. In particular, boys aged four and five tended to consider more social relations in distributive behavior. This may be useful information for teaching altruism and sharing in early childhood.

Cool and hot effortful control moderate how parenting predicts child internalization in Chinese families

Internalization of external rules is a behavioral manifestation of moral development during childhood, and its development has come to be understood from the view of a complex parenting-by-temperament process. To examine this developmental process, the current research investigated how maternal parenting behaviors and child effortful control foretell internalization throughout early to middle childhood with two longitudinal samples of Chinese mother-child dyads. In Study 1 (N = 226), maternal respect for autonomy and negative control during free plays at 15 months of age were observed. At 25 months, child cool and hot effortful control were measured with a Stroop-like categorization task and an externally imposed delay task. At 37 months, observed internalization of maternal rules was assessed. Results showed that for toddlers with high levels of cool effortful control, maternal respect for autonomy positively predicted later internalization. In Study 2 (N = 88), maternal respect for autonomy and negative control during free plays at 38 months of age were coded. At 60 months, child cool and hot effortful control were measured with a Stroop-like inhibition task and a delay-of-gratification task. Observed internalization of maternal and experimenter rules and mother-reported internalization in everyday life were assessed at 60 and 84 months. Results showed that for children low on either cool or hot effortful control, maternal respect for autonomy negatively predicted later internalization during childhood. Together, the current findings support an age-relevant goodness-of-fit model for internalization development in Chinese children throughout the first 7 years of life.

Neural basis for egalitarian sharing in five-to six-year-old children

Preferring fair resource distribution reflects human cooperative nature, but its neural correlates in young children are not well known. We investigated the neural mechanism of egalitarian resource sharing in five-to six-year-old children to examine the possibility that early egalitarianism requires behavioral control to inhibit selfish impulses. In Study 1, children participated in a behavioral control task in which they either needed or did not need to inhibit their impulsive behavioral responses in order to quickly press a key. They subsequently allocated their resources to strangers by choosing a 2:2, 3:1, or 4:0 distribution. The activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal (dlpfc) regions was recorded by functional near-infrared spectroscopy measurements. We found that dlpfc regions were activated during cognitive tasks involving behavioral control and also during the equal, but not the more selfish, allocations. There was no difference among these allocations. The results did not show evidence of an ego depletion effect on children's sharing behavior, which predicts that children will share less after their behavioral control is taxed in a cognitive task (i.e., their self-control resource depleted). Study 2 showed no activation of the dlpfc regions during third-party equal allocations in which there was no conflict between fairness and self-interest in the distribution of resources. Overall, we showed that costly equal sharing in young children relates to the activation of dlpfc regions. These results suggest that costly equal allocation has a common neural basis with behavioral control in five-to six-year-old children, implying that early egalitarian sharing requires dealing with conflicts between maximizing self-interest and following moral norms.

Not Race or Age but Their Interaction Predicts Pre-Adolescents' Inhibitory Control

Background

African American pre-adolescents are at a higher risk of risky behaviors such as aggression, drug use, alcohol use, and subsequent poor outcomes compared to Caucasian pre-adolescents. All these high-risk behaviors are connected to low levels of inhibitory control (IC).

Aim

We used the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) data to compare Caucasian and African American pre-adolescents for the effect of age on pre-adolescents IC, a driver of high-risk behaviors.

Methods

This cross-sectional analysis included 4,626 pre-adolescents between ages 9 and 10 from the ABCD study. Regression was used to analyze the data. The predictor variable was age measured in months. The main outcome was IC measured by a stop-signal task (SST). Race was the effect modifier.

Results

Overall, age was associated with IC. Race also showed a statistically significant interaction with age on pre-adolescents' IC, indicating weaker effects of age on IC for African American than Caucasian pre-adolescents.

Conclusion

Age-related changes in IC are more pronounced for Caucasian than African American pre-adolescents. To eliminate the racial gap in brain development between African American and Caucasian pre-adolescents, we should address structural and societal barriers that alter age-related development for racial minority pre-adolescents. Social and public policies, rather than health policies, are needed to address structural and societal barriers that hinder African American adolescents' brain development. Interventions should add resources to the urban areas that many African American families live in so their children can have better age-related brain development. Such changes would be essential given IC in pre-adolescents is a predictor of a wide range of behaviors.

Cardiovascular Risk Markers and Cognitive Performance in Children

Markers of cardiovascular risk and cognitive performance were assessed in 347 children. In contrast with body mass index and blood pressure, only retinal microcirculation explained a unique proportion of variance in inhibitory control and information processing, when dependencies between markers of cardiovascular risk were accounted for.

Parental Education on Youth Inhibitory Control in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study: Blacks' Diminished Returns

BACKGROUND

Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) youth are at a higher risk of high-risk behaviors compared to non-Hispanic White (NHW) youth. Some of this racial gap is shown to be due to weaker effects of parental educational attainment on reducing the prevalence of behavioral risk factors such as impulsivity, substance use, aggression, obesity, and poor school performance for NHBs, a pattern called Minorities' Diminished Returns. These diminishing returns may be due to lower than expected effects of parental education on inhibitory control.

AIM

We compared NHW and NHB youth for the effect of parental educational attainment on youth inhibitory control, a psychological and cognitive construct that closely predicts high-risk behaviors such as the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco.

METHODS

This was a cross-sectional analysis that included 4188 youth from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. The independent variable was parental educational attainment. The main outcome was youth inhibitory control measured by the stop-signal task (SST), which was validated by parent reports on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL).

RESULTS

In race/ethnicity-stratified models, high parental educational attainment was associated with a higher level of inhibitory control for NHB than NHW youth. In the pooled sample, race/ethnicity showed a statistically significant interaction with parental educational attainment on youth inhibitory control suggesting that high parental educational attainment has a smaller boosting effect on inhibitory control for NHB than NHW youth.

CONCLUSION

Parental educational attainment boosts inhibitory control for NHW but not NHB youth. To minimize the racial gap in youth brain development, we need to address societal barriers that diminish the returns of family economic and human resources, particularly parental educational attainment, for racial and ethnic minority youth. Social and public policies should address structural and societal barriers such as social stratification, segregation, racism, and discrimination that hinder NHB parents' abilities to effectively mobilize their human resources and secure tangible outcomes for their developing youth.

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.