Sulik et al.
Longitudinaal onderzoek, bestaande data, mediatie door het EF van kinderen.
Executive function = attention shifting, working memory, and inhibitory control cognitive
processes utilized in planning, problem solving, and goal-directed activity – robust correlate
of child externalizing behavior problems in cross-sectional studies.
Strong executive function could be used to support the regulation of externalizing
behavior or negative emotions associated with externalizing behavior (e.g. anger).
These behavioral patterns could also interfere with children’s ability to effectively
deploy executive function, perhaps slowing its development over time.
o Bidirectional.
Parenting = important predictor of both executive function and externalizing behavior.
Parenting: Associations With Externalizing Symptoms
In young children, there is a substantial stability in externalizing behavior over a period of
several years despite this stability, parenting predicts children’s externalizing behavior.
Children’s externalizing behavior has been shown to predict parents’ immediate
responses – however, findings are inconsistent.
Parenting: Associations With Self-Regulation
Bidirectional pattern of associations between parenting and children’s self-regulation:
Parenting predicts change in both executive function and effortful control.
Executive function predicted change in parenting.
Self-Regulation: Associations With Externalizing Symptoms
Children with externalizing behavior problems may have fewer opportunities to
practice and improve self-regulatory skills.
There is more research about executive function predicting externalizing behavior
than the other way around.
Mediation
The association between parenting and externalizing behavior is longitudinally mediated by
effortful control – an aspect of temperamental self-regulation, the ability to inhibit a dominant
response to perform a subdominant respons.
Present study
Our goal was to examine the longitudinal relations among parenting, executive function, and
externalizing behavior during a developmental period of rapid growth in children’s self-
regulation in a sample at risk for poor self-regulation and high externalizing behavior. Based
on prior empirical findings from the effortful control literature, we hypothesized a longitudinal
mediation model in which early parenting would show a negative indirect association with
children’s development of externalizing behavior, such that parenting would predict executive
function, which in turn would predict externalizing behavior (parenting executive function
externalizing behavior). A strength of our longitudinal panel design is that it allows us to
specify and test alternative models, such as a bidirectional model in which child
characteristics predict later parenting and an alternative mediation model in which parenting
predicts child externalizing behavior, which in turn predicts child executive function (parenting
externalizing behavior executive function).
Longitudinaal onderzoek, bestaande data, mediatie door het EF van kinderen.
Executive function = attention shifting, working memory, and inhibitory control cognitive
processes utilized in planning, problem solving, and goal-directed activity – robust correlate
of child externalizing behavior problems in cross-sectional studies.
Strong executive function could be used to support the regulation of externalizing
behavior or negative emotions associated with externalizing behavior (e.g. anger).
These behavioral patterns could also interfere with children’s ability to effectively
deploy executive function, perhaps slowing its development over time.
o Bidirectional.
Parenting = important predictor of both executive function and externalizing behavior.
Parenting: Associations With Externalizing Symptoms
In young children, there is a substantial stability in externalizing behavior over a period of
several years despite this stability, parenting predicts children’s externalizing behavior.
Children’s externalizing behavior has been shown to predict parents’ immediate
responses – however, findings are inconsistent.
Parenting: Associations With Self-Regulation
Bidirectional pattern of associations between parenting and children’s self-regulation:
Parenting predicts change in both executive function and effortful control.
Executive function predicted change in parenting.
Self-Regulation: Associations With Externalizing Symptoms
Children with externalizing behavior problems may have fewer opportunities to
practice and improve self-regulatory skills.
There is more research about executive function predicting externalizing behavior
than the other way around.
Mediation
The association between parenting and externalizing behavior is longitudinally mediated by
effortful control – an aspect of temperamental self-regulation, the ability to inhibit a dominant
response to perform a subdominant respons.
Present study
Our goal was to examine the longitudinal relations among parenting, executive function, and
externalizing behavior during a developmental period of rapid growth in children’s self-
regulation in a sample at risk for poor self-regulation and high externalizing behavior. Based
on prior empirical findings from the effortful control literature, we hypothesized a longitudinal
mediation model in which early parenting would show a negative indirect association with
children’s development of externalizing behavior, such that parenting would predict executive
function, which in turn would predict externalizing behavior (parenting executive function
externalizing behavior). A strength of our longitudinal panel design is that it allows us to
specify and test alternative models, such as a bidirectional model in which child
characteristics predict later parenting and an alternative mediation model in which parenting
predicts child externalizing behavior, which in turn predicts child executive function (parenting
externalizing behavior executive function).
