Exploring dimensionality of effortful control using hot and cool tasks in a sample of preschool children

Abstract

Effortful control (EC) is an important developmental construct associated with academic performance, socioemotional growth, and psychopathology. EC, defined as the ability to inhibit or delay a prepotent response typically in favor of a subdominant response, undergoes rapid development during children's preschool years. Research involving EC in preschool children can be aided by ensuring that the measured model of EC matches the latent structure of EC. Extant research indicates that EC may be multidimensional, consisting of hot (affectively salient) and cool (affectively neutral) dimensions. However, there are several untested assumptions regarding the defining features of hot EC. Confirmatory factor analysis was used in a sample of 281 preschool children (Mage=55.92months, SD=4.16; 46.6% male and 53.4% female) to compare a multidimensional model composed of hot and cool EC factors with a unidimensional model. Hot tasks were created by adding affective salience to cool tasks so that hot and cool tasks varied only by this aspect of the tasks. Tasks measuring EC were best described by a single factor and not distinct hot and cool factors, indicating that affective salience alone does not differentiate between hot and cool EC. EC shared gender-invariant associations with academic skills and externalizing behavior problems.

Keywords: Academics; Confirmatory factor analysis; Effortful control; Externalizing; Preschool children; Structural equation modeling.

Fig. 1

Structural equation model predicting children’s externalizing behaviors and academic skills from EC and age. EC, effortful control; Ext, externalizing behaviors; ODB, oppositional defiant behavior; PK, Print Knowledge; PA, Phonological Awareness; Oral, Oral Language. Residual variances are provided for the indicators and latent variables. Significant path estimates are in bold.