Longitudinal Relations of Children’s Effortful Control, Impulsivity, and Negative Emotionality to Their Externalizing, Internalizing, and Co-Occurring Behavior Problems

By N. Eisenberg, Carlos Valiente, Tracy L. Spinrad, Amanda J Cumberland, Jeffrey Liew, Mark Reiser, Qing Zhou, Sandra H. Losoya. Developmental Psychology, 2009

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The purpose of the study was to examine the relations of effortful control (EC), impulsivity, and negative emotionality to at least borderline clinical levels of symptoms and change in maladjustment over four years. Children’s (N = 214; 77% European American; M age = 73 months) externalizing and internalizing symptoms were rated by parents and teachers at 3 times, 2 years apart (T1, T2, and T3) and were related to children’s adult-rated EC, impulsivity, and emotion. In addition, the authors found patterns of change in maladjustment were related to these variables at T3 while controlling for the T1 predictor. Externalizing problems (pure or co-occurring with internalizing problems) were associated with low EC, high impulsivity, and negative emotionality, especially anger, and patterns of change also related to these variables. Internalizing problems were associated with low impulsivity and sadness and somewhat with high anger. Low attentional EC was related to internalizing problems only in regard to change in maladjustment. Change in impulsivity was associated with change in internalizing primarily when controlling for change in externalizing problems.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1bc4f60839a35d5f7dd790351d2e14ccf50de407

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Citations in the corpus

Self-Control in School-Age Children (2014, background): “…Self-control also predicts social competence and positive relationships with both adults and peers (Eisenberg, Hofer, Sulik, & Spinrad, 2014; Eisenberg et al., 2009); lower levels of cigarette, alcohol, and drug use Correspondence should be addressed to Angela L. Duckworth, Psychology…”
Social understanding and self-regulation predict pre-schoolers’ sharing with friends and disliked peers (2015, result): “…in line with findings and theoretical proposals that self-control plays an important role in the development of social competence in general (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2009; Kochanska et al., 2000; Rubin, Burgess, Dwyer, & Hastings, 2003; Steinbeis, Bernhardt, & Singer, 2012) and of prosocial…”
Foundation for a temperament-based theory of antisocial behavior and criminal justice system involvement (2014, background): “” There is considerable evidence that children with temperaments characterized by elevated levels of negative emotionality are at risk for externalizing behaviors, adverse social interactions with parents, siblings, peers, and others, and related personal problems (Eisenberg et al., 2009; Komsi et a”
Self-Control and Grit (2014, background): “Prospective longitudinal studies have confirmed that higher levels of selfcontrol earlier in life predict later academic achievement and attainment (Duckworth & Carlson, 2013; Mischel, 2014), prosocial behavior (Eisenberg et al., 2009), employment, earnings, savings, and physical health (Moffitt et ”
Commonalities and Differences in the Research on Children’s Effortful Control and Executive Function: A Call for an Integrated Model of Self‐Regulation (2012, background): “, 2002) Relations to adaptive functions EC has been negatively related to externalizing and internalizing problems (Eisenberg et al., 2001; Eisenberg, Sadovsky, et al., 2005; Eisenberg, Zhou, et al., 2005; Eisenberg et al., 2009; Valiente et al., 2003; Valiente et al., 2006; Zhou et al., 2007; Zhou ”
Annual Research Review: On the relations among self-regulation, self-control, executive functioning, effortful control, cognitive control, impulsivity, risk-taking, and inhibition for developmental psychopathology (2016, neutral): “…is related to attention deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and internalizing and externalizing psychopathology (Calkins, Graziano, & Keane, 2007; Eisenberg et al., 2009; Espy, Sheffield, Wiebe, Clark, & Moehr, 2011; Martel & Nigg, 2006; Olson, Sameroff, Kerr, Lopez, & Wellman, 2005; Petitclerc…”
Executive function in the first three years of life: precursors, predictors and patterns (2016, background): “Not only does early EF have strong links to children’s later social and academic functioning (Blair & Peters Razza, 2007; Eisenberg et al., 2009) but difficulties with some EFs are implicated in a range of disorders including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum…”