Developmental Antecedents of Effortful Control from Late Childhood to Young Adulthood

• In Event: 1-007 - Developmental Correlates of Effortful Control Across Childhood and Adolescence

Integrative Statement

Effortful control refers to the propensity to regulate one’s impulses and behaviors, to focus and shift attention easily, and to motivate the self towards a goal when there are competing desires (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). Effortful control is the temperamental core of self-regulation and one of many constructs that lies within a larger nomological network of self-regulatory traits including self-control, ego control, delay of gratification, and conscientiousness. Given the longterm consequences of low effortful control (Moffitt et al., 2011), it is important to determine how individuals develop the capacity to self-regulate, especially among ethnic minority youth. Using data from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth, we conducted a comprehensive investigation of the developmental antecedents of effortful control trajectories from late childhood to young adulthood. We examined antecedents at multiple levels of analysis, encompassing both general and culture-specific risk and protective factors (see Table 1).

Data came from a longitudinal study of 674 Mexican-origin youth and their parents. The children (50% female) and their parents were interviewed annually from age 10 to 20. Effortful control was measured via child self-reports and mother-reports of the child using the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire/Adult Temperament Questionnaire when the child was 10, 12, 14, 16, and 19 years old. In the present study, the developmental antecedents were assessed using multi-method data collected from a variety of sources, including self-reports, parent-reports, spouse-reports, observational data, school records, and block-level census data (see Table 1).

To understand how effortful control changes over time, we conducted univariate latent growth curve models to find the best-fitting trajectory. To understand the etiology of effortful control, we took three approaches: 1) for dichotomous antecedents (e.g., gender), we conducted multiple-group latent growth curves, 2) for time-invariant antecedents, we entered the variable as a predictor of the initial level and slope of effortful control, and 2) for time-varying antecedents, we conducted bivariate latent growth curve models to examine co-development.

Overall, univariate latent growth curve models showed that the developmental trajectory of effortful control slightly decreased from age 10 to 14, before increasing from age 14 to 19 (see Figure 1). However, there were diverging developmental trends for the facets of effortful control from age 10 to 19 (i.e., inhibitory control, activation control, attention). Further, our findings show that the etiology of effortful control originates from multiple ecological levels (see Table 1). We found that higher levels of parental hostility, peer deviance, school and neighborhood violence, and racial discrimination were associated with the development of poor effortful control, whereas higher levels of parental monitoring and school SES were associated with the development of better effortful control. Together, these findings suggest that a multi-level constellation of general and culture-specific factors contribute to the development of effortful control during adolescence. Our findings further highlight the importance of taking into account the unique characteristics of ethnic minority youth, including sources of risk and resilience, when constructing theories and designing interventions to reduce the likelihood of developing poor effortful control.

Authors

• Olivia Emile Atherton, University of California, Davis
  Presenting Author

• Katherine M. Lawson, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Richard W. Robins, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author