Adolescent risky behaviors are often interpreted as products of self-control failures stemming from a developmental mismatch between reward processing and cognitive control systems. However, adolescents -- much like adults -- may also engage in risky behaviors because of conscious and deliberate (even if objectively poor) decisions. It is not easy…

This special section on the development of emotion regulation highlights several important new directions for research. Specifically, the findings of these studies indicate that: (1) emotion regulation develops across the lifespan and not just in early childhood and does so in complex ways, (2) it is necessary to distinguish among emotions to…

This study examined developmental differences in, and cognitive bases of, coping flexibility in children with and without ADHD. Younger (age 7 to 8) and older (age 10 to 11) children with and without ADHD (N = 80) responded to hypothetical vignettes about problematic interactions with peers that shifted from controllable to uncontrollable over…

We investigated the development of ego-control (EC) and ego-resiliency (ER) over a 13-year period in a cohort of Swedish children first assessed at 2 years of age. Children became more ego-controlled over time although individual differences in EC remained stable. Children's levels of resiliency increased from 2 to 3 years of age and then declined…

Negative emotionality and poor attention may combine or interact as risk factors in development. Negative emotionality is considered a challenge for self-regulation, whereas good attention is a potential means of self-regulation. In the current study, composites of 1- and 2-year maternal ratings of negative emotionality and global ratings of…