Maternal Low Self-Control, Maternal Attachment Toward Children, Parenting Practices, and Adolescent Low Self-Control: a Prospective 15-Year Study

“Help Me Control My Impulses!”: Adolescent Impulsivity and Its Negative Individual, Family, Peer, and Community Explanatory Factors

“…Some limitations of the study must be considered, including its cross-sectional nature, which makes it impossible to accurately infer predictive relationships between the explanatory variables and impulsivity over time; the use of self-report measures, including some retrospective scales (e.g., EMWS-A), which may lead to a social desirability bias (Krumpal, 2013 ); and the use of a lengthy research protocol, which may have had a negative impact on adolescents’ energy and motivation, even though two different moments for participation were used. Furthermore, another limitation of the study is not having been able to assess and statistically control for other variables—particularly those related to the subsystems of the social context that were not explored (e.g., family structure, parent characteristics)—that have an effect on adolescent impulsivity and might interact with some independent variables to influence this trait, such as the levels of parental socioeconomic status (Assari et al, 2018 ) and parental impulsivity (Bolger et al, 2022 ; Turiuc & Pojoga, 2018 ). Lastly, one limitation is the fact that impulsivity was measured as a unidimensional construct using a subscale of a measure specifically developed to assess adolescent self-harm (Barreto Carvalho et al, 2015 ), despite this subscale being comprised of eight items.…”

“…Due to the nature of these variables, they can be examined in light of the unified theory of development (Sameroff, 2010 ), which posits that human development is influenced by an array of interacting biological (e.g., neurophysiology, neuroendocrinology), psychological (e.g., social competence, identity), and social (e.g., family, school) factors. Even though adolescent impulsivity has a strong neurobiological component (Steinberg, 2008 ), the literature shows that lower levels of impulsivity/higher levels of self-control are predicted by: biological factors, namely the female gender (e.g., Perez et al, 2016 ) and older age groups (e.g., Inuggi et al, 2014 ); variables related to the family structure subsystem, including higher parental socioeconomic status (e.g., Assari et al, 2018 ); aspects related to the parent characteristics subsystem, namely higher parental self-control/lower parental impulsivity (e.g., Bolger et al, 2022 ); variables related to the peers and the community subsystems, such as positive school environment and positive peer relationships (e.g., Joo & Lee, 2020 ); and factors related to the family processes subsystem, including positive parenting (e.g., Khurana & Romer, 2020 ). Moreover, impulsivity has been found to be negatively correlated with: aspects related to the peers and the community subsystems, such as positive peer relationships (e.g., Moyano et al, 2022 ); variables related to the family processes subsystem, including early memories of warmth and safeness (Barreto Carvalho et al, 2015 ) and positive family relationships (e.g., Song et al, 2019 ); and psychological factors, such as rational decision-making style (Jelihovschi et al, 2018 ), resilience (Ran et al, 2022 ), problem-focused coping (Li et al, 2019 ), and emotion regulation (e.g., Hasking & Claes, 2020 ).…”

“…More specifically, female youth have been found to be less impulsive than their male counterparts (e.g., Perez et al, 2016 ) and this trait has been found to peak in adolescence and show a decline afterward until adulthood (e.g., Inuggi et al, 2014 ; Steinberg et al, 2008 ); indeed, over time, adolescents develop cognitive and emotional skills typical of adulthood (e.g., Steinberg, 2008 ), leading to a stabilization in the frequency of impulsive behavior in the early to mid-20s (Steinberg et al, 2008 ). Moreover, regarding the family structure and the parent characteristics subsystems, higher parental socioeconomic status has been found to predict adolescents’ lower impulsivity (Assari et al, 2018 ) and higher maternal self-control to predict adolescents’ higher self-control directly and indirectly via sequential associations with maternal attachment and effective parenting (Bolger et al, 2022 ). This last finding is in line with one previous study that found that lower parental impulsivity is associated with adolescent’s higher self-control (Turiuc & Pojoga, 2018 ).…”

Gene-environment correlation: The role of family environment in academic development

“…Parental monitoring and parental control were assessed using a set of six and eight items, respectively, reported by each of the twins at age 16. The questionnaires were both drawn from the NICHD Early Childcare and Youth Development Study (45). The twins rated the level of parental control in their family answering questions about who makes decisions about different activities, for example: “ Whether you can go out to meet friends ” and “ How you dress ”.…”