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Risk-Taking Behaviors of Young Children: The Role of Children's and Parents' Socioemotional and Cognitive Control

Sophie Couture1,2, Daniel Paquette3, Marc Bigras4

  • 1Department of Psychoeducation, Université de Sherbrooke, 2500 Bd de l'Université, Sherbrooke, QC, J1K 2R1, Canada. sophie.couture3@usherbrooke.ca.

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology
|January 10, 2025
PubMed

Insights

Parental sensation seeking and self-regulation, alongside child

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Child Psychology
  • Behavioral Science

Background:

  • Child risk-taking behaviors are influenced by child factors (temperament, age, sex) and parent factors (supervision, attachment).
  • The dual systems model suggests child risk-taking arises from an imbalance between socioemotional overactivation (sensation seeking) and low cognitive control (lack of self-regulation).
  • Intergenerational transmission highlights the importance of parental socioemotional and cognitive control systems in children's risk-taking.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the role of parental sensation seeking and self-regulation, in addition to the child's surgency-effortful control imbalance, in predicting child risk-taking behaviors.
  • To examine the intergenerational transmission of risk-taking behaviors within a dual systems framework.

Main Methods:

  • Longitudinal study of 177 two-parent families.
  • Data collected at two time points (child ages 12-18 and 24-30 months).
  • Parents completed questionnaires on sociodemographics, sensation seeking, self-regulation, and child temperament/risk-taking; child sex was recorded.

Main Results:

  • Fathers' higher sensation seeking was associated with increased child risk-taking.
  • Mothers' lower self-regulation was associated with increased child risk-taking.
  • Child surgency-effortful imbalance remained a strong predictor of child risk-taking after controlling for parental factors and child sex.

Conclusions:

  • An adapted dual systems model incorporating parental sensation seeking and self-regulation, alongside child surgency-effortful imbalance, offers a more comprehensive understanding of child risk-taking.
  • Parental traits play a significant role in shaping children's risk-taking behaviors, transmitted across generations.

Keywords:
Dual systems ModelIntergenerationalRisk takingSelf-regulationSensation seekingTemperament

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