Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Mar;27(5):539-553.
doi: 10.1177/10870547231153934. Epub 2023 Feb 13.

Everyday Cognitive Control and Emotion Dysregulation in Young Adults With and Without ADHD: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

Maayan Ben-Dor Cohen  1 , Adina Maeir  1 , Eran Eldar  1 , Mor Nahum  1
Affiliations

Everyday Cognitive Control and Emotion Dysregulation in Young Adults With and Without ADHD: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

Maayan Ben-Dor Cohen et al. J Atten Disord. 2023 Mar.

Abstract

Objective: This study examined the contribution of the temporal dynamics of two cognitive control mechanisms-inhibitory control (IC) and working memory (WM)-to emotion dysregulation (ED) in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in ecological settings.

Method: One hundred twenty-two participants (age 18-33 years; 60 with ADHD) reported their ED at baseline, followed by a 5-day ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study, with short behavioral IC and WM tasks performed five times/day.

Results: For IC, mean and lability of performance over EMA significantly accounted for differences in ED but not baseline performance. For WM, both baseline and mean of EMA, but not EMA lability, accounted for ED variance. ADHD status further contributed to the explained variance of ED.

Conclusions: Our results support the contribution of dynamic IC processes to ED in ADHD, in addition to WM performance level, and highlight the importance of dynamic and ecological investigation of different cognitive control components.

Keywords: ADHD; cognitive control; ecological momentary assessment; emotion dysregulation; inhibition; working memory.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Adler L. A., Silverstein M. J. (2018). Emotional dysregulation in adult ADHD. Psychiatric Annals, 48(7), 318–322. 10.3928/00485713-20180607-01 - DOI
    1. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Association.
    1. Anker E., Ogrim G., Heir T. (2022). Verbal working memory and processing speed: Correlations with the severity of attention deficit and emotional dysregulation in adult ADHD. Journal of Neuropsychology, 16(1), 211–235. 10.1111/jnp.12260 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bardeen J. R., Fergus T. A., Hannan S. M., Orcutt H. K. (2016). Addressing psychometric limitations of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale through item modification. Journal of Personality Assessment, 98(3), 298–309. 10.1080/00223891.2015.1091774 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Barkley R. A. (2015). Emotional dysregulation is a core component of ADHD. In Barkley R. A. (Ed.), Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: A handbook for diagnosis and treatment (4th ed., pp. 81–115). The Guilford Press.

Publication types