Links Between Mother’s Executive Function, Discipline, and Personality to Toddler’s Executive Function and Misbehavior

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Attention, Learning, Memory

Abstract

Recent work stresses the importance of examining the development of executive function (i.e., EF or conscious control) within a social context, with significant parental contributions (e.g., Hughes & Devine, 2019; Lewis & Carpendale, 2009). Better understanding this foundational cognitive skill has important implications, as EF has been linked to developing behavior problems (Yoonkyung et al., 2020). In addition, work has shown a complex interaction between emerging EF, misbehavior, and parental influence (e.g., harsh parenting linked to behavior problems when mother’s EF was poor, especially in chaotic environments, Deater-Deckard et al., 2009). Thus, works suggests fully understanding developing EF and misbehavior requires an understanding of the parenting environment. However, the examination of emerging EF within a social context has largely focused on the preschool years and older, despite the fact that foundations for EF emerge early (e.g., Devine et al., 2019; Miller & Marcovitch, 2015). The purpose of the present study was to examine emerging EF and misbehavior in the toddler years with considerations of maternal EF, discipline strategies, and personality.

Sixty-nine mother-child dyads participated when toddlers were approximately 18 or 24 months old (Mage = 20.74 months, SD = .26, 59.7% male). The number of tasks toddlers passed across 7 EF tasks (e.g., Miller & Marcovitch, 2015) including 2 delay of gratification tasks (Kochanska et al., 1998), 3 working memory tasks (Alp. 1994; Diamond et al., 1997; Wiebe & Bauer, 2005), and 2 Flexibility Task (Bernier et al., 2010; Espy et al., 1999) was calculated. Mothers completed a battery of 4 EF tasks including an inhibition Stroop task (Stroop, 1935), a flexibility card sorting task (Kirkham & Diamond, 2005), a backward-digit working memory task (Carlson et al., 2002), and a problem-solving Tower of Hanoi task (e.g., Deater-Deckard et al., 2012). Accuracy or time to completion on each task was measured. Mothers also completed a self-report measure on parenting discipline strategies related to laxness, overreactivity, and hostility (Rhoades and O’Leary, 2007) and measures of impulsivity (McCarney & Anderson, 1996), personality (Gosling et al., 2003), and childhood misbehavior (Achenbach & Rescoria, 2000).

Data collection for this study is complete. We will first examine bivariate correlations between measures of child EF and parent measures of EF, discipline strategies, personality, and parent-reported misbehavior to determine whether links between these social and maternal elements link to emerging EF and misbehavior during the toddler years. We will also examine potential moderations of toddler EF and misbehavior using multiple linear regression. For example, we hypothesize that although parental EF will relate to child EF given the hypothesized genetic origin (e.g., Friedman et al., 2008), it is possible that the strength of this relationship may vary with regard to parenting environment and personality, which also play a role in EF. Further, we will examine whether we replicate links between early emerging EF and childhood misbehavior, and whether misbehavior is related to harsh parenting moderated by maternal EF (Deater-Deckard et al., 2009). This work will extend examinations of early EF, childhood misbehavior, and parenting to a younger sample.

Authors

• Zubie Reagan Pearce, University of Mississippi
  Presenting Author

• Tonya Marie Vandenbrink, University of Mississippi
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carey Bernini Dowling, University of Mississippi
  Non-Presenting Author

• Stephanie E. Miller, University of Mississippi
  Non-Presenting Author