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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
Children's self-regulation development: Continuity, change, and parenting daily hassles
Qingyang Liu1, Leah D Doane1, Mary C Davis1
1Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, United States.
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology
|June 4, 2026
Summary
Childhood self-regulation, including attentional focusing, inhibitory control, and impulsivity, shows developmental continuity. Early parenting daily hassles negatively impact these crucial self-regulatory skills from toddlerhood onward.
Area of Science:
- Developmental psychology
- Child psychology
- Behavioral neuroscience
Background:
- Self-regulation is vital for children's cognitive, social, and emotional adaptation.
- The psychobiological model highlights top-down (attentional focusing, inhibitory control) and bottom-up (impulsivity) processes in self-regulation.
- Early caregiving, including parental daily hassles, may influence self-regulation development, yet longitudinal data are limited.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine developmental patterns of attentional focusing, inhibitory control, and impulsivity from toddlerhood to early adolescence.
- To investigate the longitudinal continuity and change in these self-regulation domains.
- To assess the influence of early parental daily hassles on self-regulation development.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study using data from the Arizona Twin Project (N = 1325 twins).
- Employed autoregressive simplex and common factor models to analyze developmental patterns.
- Measured attentional focusing, inhibitory control, and impulsivity across multiple developmental stages.
Main Results:
- Attentional focusing and inhibitory control showed increasing stability from early childhood through adolescence.
- Impulsivity demonstrated moderate stability in early childhood, followed by strong continuity into adolescence.
- Toddlerhood parental daily hassles predicted poorer attentional focusing and inhibitory control, and higher impulsivity.
Conclusions:
- Self-regulation domains exhibit both trait-like continuity and state-like changes over development.
- Self-regulatory capacities mature and consolidate over time.
- Early environmental stressors, such as parental daily hassles, can significantly impact the trajectory of self-regulation development.
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