This study examined teacher-child conflict as a possible mediator of the effects of temperamental anger and effortful control on subsequent externalizing behavior. Reciprocal influences between teacher-child conflict and externalizing behavior were also examined. Participants were 1,152 children (49% female; 81.6% non-Hispanic White) from the…

Emotion regulation predicts positive academic outcomes like learning, but little is known about "why". Effective emotion regulation likely promotes learning by broadening the scope of what may be attended to after an emotional event. One hundred twenty-six 6- to 13-year-olds' (54% boys) regulation of sadness was examined for changes in…

This study examined whether children's observed individual engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks related to their school readiness after controlling for observed preschool classroom quality and children's baseline skills. The sample included 211 predominately low-income, racially/ethnically diverse 4-year-old children in 49 preschool…

Panel mediation models and fixed-effects models were used to explore longitudinal relations among parents' reactions to children's displays of negative emotions, children's effortful control (EC), and children's math achievement (N = 291; M age in fall of kindergarten = 5.66 years, SD = 0.39 year) across kindergarten through…

Data were analyzed from a population-based, longitudinal sample of 8,650 U.S. children to (a) identify factors associated with or predictive of oral vocabulary size at 24 months of age and (b) evaluate whether oral vocabulary size is uniquely predictive of academic and behavioral functioning at kindergarten entry. Children from higher…

This study examined bidirectional associations between mothers' depressive symptoms and children's externalizing behavior and whether they were moderated by preschool-age effortful control and gender. Mothers and teachers reported on 224 primarily White, middle-class children at ages 3, 5, and 10. Effortful control was assessed via…

Longitudinal relations among ego-resiliency (ER), effortful control (EC), and observed intrusive parenting were examined at 18, 30, and 42 months of age ("Ns" = 256, 230, and 210) using structural equation modeling. Intrusive parenting at 18 and 30 months negatively predicted EC a year later, over and above earlier levels. EC at…

In keeping with proposals emphasizing the role of early experience in infant brain development, this study investigated the prospective links between quality of parent-infant interactions and subsequent child executive functioning (EF), including working memory, impulse control, and set shifting. Maternal sensitivity, mind-mindedness and autonomy…

This study examined physiological, emotional, and attentional regulatory functions as predictors of self-regulation in 125 infants followed 7 times from birth to 5 years. Physiological regulation was assessed by neonatal vagal tone and sleep-wake cyclicity; emotion regulation by response to stress at 3, 6, and 12 months; and attention regulation…

This research examined motivational trajectories during early adolescence in the United States and China. Upon their entry into middle school at 7th grade and every 6 months thereafter until the end of 8th grade, 825 American and Chinese children (mean age = 12.73 years) reported on their motivational beliefs (e.g., mastery orientation) and…

Parental supportiveness and protective overcontrol and preschoolers' parasympathetic regulation were examined as predictors of temperamental inhibition, social wariness, and internalizing problems. Lower baseline vagal tone and weaker vagal suppression were expected to mark poorer dispositional self-regulatory capacity, leaving children more…

Parental agreement was found to be more implicative for the psychological functioning of boys than girls and was positively related to the development of ego control in boys but negatively related to the development of ego control in girls. (Author/MP)

The unique relations of effortful control and impulsivity to resiliency and adjustment were examined when children were 4.5 to 8 years old, and 2 years later. Parents and teachers reported on all constructs and children's attentional persistence was observed. In concurrent structural equation models, effortful control and impulsivity uniquely and…

Hypothesized that individual differences in 81 sixth-grade boys' self-restraint would serve as a mediator between family factors in preadolescence and sons' delinquent behavior 4 years later. General family functioning at preadolescence, independent of other scores, predicted boys' level of self-restraint four years later. (MDM)

In a 3-wave longitudinal study (with assessments 2 years apart) involving 186 early adolescents (M ages of approximately 9.3, 11.4, and 13.4), the hypothesis that parental warmth/positive expressivity predicts children's effortful control (EC) (a temperamental characteristic contributing to emotion regulation) 2 years later, which in turn predicts…