Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Self-regulation is important for young children considering its profound relations with later mental health and social and cognitive competence. Although psychologists pay much attention to self-regulation for more than 100 years with the aim to investigate individual’s optimal development, the structure of self-regulation and its developmental mechanisms in early ages are still unclear. Following the chronological sequence of the literature, this review shows that the different research perspectives on self-regulation in young children have integrated twice: (1) From 2000 to 2010, researchers attempted to integrate several mainstream perspectives of self-regulation in last century. For example, Kochanska’s model (2006) focused on combining the viewpoints of temperamental and behavioral self-regulation; Calkins’s model (2002) focused on combining the viewpoints of physiological, attentional and emotional self-regulation; and Feldman (2009) constructed a multilevel interdisciplinary model of self-regulation from infancy to preschool ages. (2) In the latest decade, psychologists started to call for the fusion of two research directions and investigate young children’s self-regulation comprehensively. Those two directions are temperamental mechanism of self-regulation—effortful control and “higher-ordered” cognitive mechanism of self-regulation—executive function. After summarizing the previous representative models, the current study further presents a developmental hierarchical-integrative perspective of self-regulation in young children: a physiology-emotion-attention-based and temperament-behavior-cognition-modulated model.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Executive Function (EF), proven to be linked to the prefrontal cortex, refers to a set of higher-order cognitive and self-regulatory processes. These processes include (a) inhibition, the ability to intentionally suppress prepotent impulses or habits; (b) working memory, the ability to hold multiple things in the mind at once while mentally manipulating one or more of them; and (c) cognitive flexibility or shifting, the capability to switch between tasks. However, little attention has been given to predictors of EF across the first two years of life. A principal limitation of this is a methodological challenge, due to toddlers’ limited sustained attention, poor language competence, and labile emotional state. Accordingly, in this study, we aimed to examine developmental intrinsic factors (infant attention and temperament) and the caregiving environment (maternal sensitivity) in infancy as possible predictors of EF in toddlerhood. By estimating specific contributions and interaction effects, we aimed to expand the knowledge on early mechanisms behind the development of EF in toddlerhood from an intrinsic and environmental perspective. At six months (T1, n = 236), infants and mothers visited Center for Child Development for the assessment of maternal sensitivity and infant attention. Mothers completed questionnaires on infant temperament. Maternal sensitivity was evaluated by observing the free, interactive process between mother and children at six months. Infant temperament was assessed by mothers reporting data using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire Revised-Short Form (IBQR-SF), and infant attention was assessed using a Screen Look Duration task at six months. At 24 months (T2, n = 191), the children returned to the laboratory with an accompanying parent for an assessment battery of EF tasks, including Multilocation Search, Shape Stroop, Reverse Categorization, and Delay of Gratification tasks. The results indicated that: (1) Peak look duration could predict working memory task and delay of gratification task performance at 24 months. This provides empirical support for the hierarchical framework of EF development, advocating early attention as a foundation for the development of EF. (2) High levels of maternal sensitivity significantly predicted better EF performance among children with low levels of surgency in infancy. However, there was no link between maternal sensitivity and EF among children with medium to high levels of surgency in infancy. (3) Interaction effects suggested that maternal sensitivity positively predicted EF performance among children with high levels of peak look duration in infancy. However, maternal sensitivity negatively predicted EF performance among children with low levels of peak look duration in infancy. Overall, our findings indicate the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic factors in the development of EF in toddlers and provide key insights about parenting. For infants with a lower level of surgency or longer peak look duration, maternal sensitivity positively predicted EF performance in toddlerhood. However, for infants with shorter peak look duration, excessive maternal sensitivity may not be desirable.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2022-01-21
Abstract：
Anxiety is an aversive emotional and motivational state occurring in threatening circumstances, mainly including general anxiety and separation anxiety in early childhood. General anxiety is a kind of trait anxiety relating to general susceptibility to anxiety, while separation anxiety belongs to the state anxiety determined interactively by trait and situational stress. Previous studies have demonstrated the negative effects of anxiety on creativity, but less is known about the mechanisms of these effect, particular the longitudinal effects of anxiety on creativity from toddlerhood to preschool period. Processing Efficiency Theory and Attentional Control Theory explained the effect of anxiety on cognition from the perspective of cognitive processing. Moreover, childhood anxiety may longitudinally affect later development of creativity through neuroendocrine system. That is, anxiety activates the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis (HPA axis) with releasing glucocorticoids, which are associated with the development of higher-order cognitive function. Thus, we assumed that anxiety in early childhood had a longitudinal adverse effect on later development of creativity. Further, the present study explored the mechanisms between early childhood anxiety and creativity in preschool period. The general cognitive ability, a foundamental component of creativity, and motivation may be candidate mediated variables. According to Piaget’s cognitive development theory, a necessary precondition for the development from one cognitive stage to a higher stage is that the individual encounters with discrepancies between the previous schema and the current stimulus, which lead to the motivation to achieve a new cognitive balance. These views suggested that cognition and motivation may be two closely intertwined processes, and general cognitive functions play a decisive role in motivation activation. For younger children, the motivation is reflected in the persistence on objects and people and so on, namely mastery motivation. Accordingly, a longitudinal study was designed to examine the relation between anxiety of toddlers and their creativity when they were 5 years old, and investigate the underlying mechanism by chain mediation effects of general cognitive function and mastery motivation.
96 families (42 boys and 54 girls) were recruited from the local communities and child care clinics in urban areas of Beijing. At 14 and 25 months, infants’ general anxiety and
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