The process of early self-control: an observational study in two- and three-year-olds

Abstract

Early individual differences in self-control are predictive of numerous developmental outcomes, such as physical health and risk-taking behaviours. Therefore, it is important to improve our understanding of how young children manage to exert self-control. This study investigates two-and three-year-old children's behaviours during two self-control tasks and the association between the occurrence of these behaviours and task success. Furthermore, the study examines relations between timing and occurrence of these behaviours and caregiverrated self-control. Two-and three-year-olds (N = 62) were given a snack and gift delay of gratification task to measure self-control. The following behaviours were coded second-bysecond during the delay: direction of visual attention and the body (directed towards or away from the reward), distracting with the hands (fidgeting), and actively 'withholding' the hands (e.g., holding one hand with the other). To assess caregiver-rated self-control, parents and teachers filled out a selected set of items from the Early Childhood Behaviour Questionnaire inhibitory control scale (Putnam et al. 2006). The percentage of time that children looked away and withheld their hands from the reward positively predicted task success, suggesting that these behaviours are strategic at this young age. Average latency of initiating these behaviours was <10 s for successful children. Teacher-rated (but not parent-rated) self-control related to both the timing and co-occurrence of these behaviours, supporting the ecological validity of the observations. These findings call for future studies to examine further how individual and contextual factors shape the fine-grained dynamics of strategy use in self-control early in life.

“Food” and “non-food” self-regulation in childhood: a review and reciprocal analysis

“…The wait or delay aspect of delay-of-gratification is also inherent in inhibitory control as conceived in both EF and EC and these aspects are now frequently used in the measurement of inhibitory control. In delay-ofgratification tasks, both food and non-food rewards (such as an appealingly wrapped gift) have been used [14,19,74,96]. Because of the use of a reward in the delay-of-gratification paradigm it has often been used as a measure of hot self-regulation [8,93].…”

“…Self-regulation is important for children's healthy functioning and development, as shown by its associations with a wide range of developmental outcomes, including behavioral, social, emotional and academic adjustment [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8], school readiness [9,10] positive health outcomes [11] and overweight/obesity [7,[12][13][14][15][16]. Self-regulation has been identified as a central aspect of development in the early years [4,8,11,[17][18][19].…”

The relation between early self‐regulation and classroom context: The role of adult presence, the task’s source of initiation, and social context

“…Recent research examines the interplay between self‐regulation and contexts, including tasks, instructional practices, and interpersonal relationships in classrooms (Perry & Rahim, 2011). Despite this, the need for more studies to understand how children’s self‐regulation develops across contexts is pertinent (Mulder, van Ravenswaaij, Verhagen, Moerbeek, & Leseman, 2019; Perry, 2013).…”

The development of homogeneity psycho cognition learning strategy in physical education learning

“…Attention can have either positive or negative effects on children's behavior. Relating to teacher's attention, an observational study on preschool students suggests that teachers give less criticism and fewer commands compared to the number of tasks assigned to children [47]. A case study of a six-year-old male student shows that praise and other positive teacher's attention can be done to increase appropriate behavior and reduce bad behavior [48].…”