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Self-Regulation During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of
Self-Regulation During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of Daina Crafa, Douglas Mental Health Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This article is a revision of the previous edition article by C.B. Kopp, pp. 13862–13866, Ó 2001, Elsevier Ltd.
Abstract Self-regulation is a construct that represents the development of children’s abilities to follow the everyday norms and practices that are embraced by their caregivers, teachers, peers, and cultures. It is a complex and highly individualized ability that relies on multiple physiological, psychoneurobiological, and cognitive processes and is shaped by socialization and caretaker instruction. This article provides a general overview of the social history and mechanisms underlying self-regulation.
Historical and Clinical Contexts Self-regulation is a construct that represents the development of children’s abilities to follow the everyday norms and practices that are embraced by their caregivers, teachers, peers, and cultures. Self-regulation is an intrinsic part of the socialization process, especially during the formative early years of life. Most children develop self-regulation abilities by the time they are 5 years old. While young children initially have trouble with self-inhibition, they strengthen these skills while simultaneously developing control over facial and emotional expressions (Carlson, 2005). Children who do not develop these skills at a young age are at higher risk for developing behavioral disorders later in life. Although a majority of children are able to self-regulate as young as 2–3 years old, some children begin to exhibit dysregulated behaviors instead. These behaviors vary across cultures but may include resistance to requests made by adults, difficulty with routines, high levels of activity, and unfocused attention often associated with an inability ‘to wait’ or a poor temperament. The early emergence of dysregulated behaviors appear to act as a predecessor to the development of mental health issues later in life. Perhaps for this reason, the modern movement of research aiming to understand self-regulation began in the late twentieth century as clinical investigations. Previous findings, primarily from North America and Western Europe, on topics such as impulse control and resistance to discipline implicated factors such as ‘ineffective parenting,’ as well as distortions in the child’s own cognitive or language skills. With rare exceptions, few attempts were made at the time to understand antecedents, culture- or age-related correlates, and consequences of early self-regulated or dysregulated behaviors. However, as a more authoritarian and less authoritative parenting style began to emerge at the turn of the century, a more comprehensive and integrative perspective was assumed to broaden the developmental model and provide insights about multiple contributors to problematic behaviors. Family and social standards were increasingly emphasized because of their relevance for self-regulation. These studies focused on the characteristics and consequences of authoritative parenting, children’s autonomy needs, and understanding how the self-determined needs of the individual balance with the value based requirements of social–cultural groups. Such
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 21
concerns formed the foundation of early self-regulation research. Most recently, advances in physiological, cognitive, and brain-based methods have shifted this research toward an examination of multileveled explanations describing mechanisms of compliance and self-regulation. Meanwhile, the increasing cultural diversity in the populations of many of the countries prominently represented in research seem to have raised awareness of the role-differing cultural norms as well as neighborhood environments may play in developing social expectations and shaping behaviors.
Three Intertwined Definitions of Self-Regulation Self-regulation refers to the development of children’s ability to follow everyday customs and valued norms embraced and prescribed by their parents or caretakers and others. Selfregulation is a vital constituent of the socialization process. A broad construct, self-regulation encompasses a diverse set of behaviors such as compliance, the ability to delay actions when appropriate, and modulation of emotions, motor, and vocal activities as suitable to norm-based contexts. The self in selfregulation is an essential feature, and involves a sentient self – one that recognizes and understands the reasons for standards and evaluates one’s own actions in relation to others’ feelings and needs. Thus the hallmark of self-regulation is the ability to act in accordance with various family and social values in the absence of external monitors, across a variety of situations, but neither slavishly nor mindlessly. A second meaning of self-regulation refers to various physiological or psychobiological processes that function adaptively to situational demands, and often do not involve normative standards. Examples include the regulation of intensity of arousal subsequent to emotion-producing events, or the control of centrally regulated physiological and perceptual systems to novel events. Centrally regulated systems include electrodermal responses, vagal tone and heart rate, and attention control. Variation in these responses is often studied for links to temperament styles, control of arousal states, and emotion control and coping (e.g., Ochsner and Gross, 2005; Kashdan et al., 2006; Goldin et al., 2008). A third view of self-regulation comes from recent perspectives in cognitive science, which posits that motivation and
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.23168-1
553
554
Self-Regulation During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of
executive functions share roles in the cognitive processes underlying self-regulation. Here, with an emphasis on an individual’s goals and the processes that shape the person’s actions, a major role is given to the self’s role and to evaluation of gains and losses. Autonomy, control, self-integrity, and efficacy are essential in order for the individual to be effective in the pursuit of desired goals. Within the motivational framework, substantial attention is directed to understanding how adults facilitate or inhibit the child’s autonomy.
Socialization Despite changing emphases in socialization, three principles remain a constant; these have implications for the development of self-regulation. First, most sociocultural groups expect primary authority figures, such as parents and other family members, to begin the active process of socialization. These individuals actively expose older infants and toddlers to family norms and practices. Later, these socializing agents will be joined by others who typically include teachers, peers, friends, and neighbors. New socializing agents may reinforce previous norms, expand the interpretation of norms, or introduce new ones. Children are expected to adapt their behavior accordingly. Second, caretakers tend to be mindful – perhaps implicitly – of a child’s developmental capabilities, the family’s functional needs, and sociocultural standards when they teach norms. Protection of the child from harm seems to be the most salient initial child-rearing value. Then the content of caretakers’ socialization efforts progresses to other family concerns, and from there to the broader context of neighborhood, community, and societal norms. Across sociocultural groups, there are assumptions that toddlers and preschoolers will learn a few specific family and neighborhood norms, whereas school-aged children will adopt family and cultural customs and moral standards, formal laws, and economic values. Adolescents are expected to prepare themselves for social, emotional, and economic independence using as infrastructure the norms of the family and culture. The third principle is that socialization and self-regulation are adaptive, bidirectional processes. Children are not passive recipients in the socialization process. With the growth of their own cognitive skills and recognition of their own self needs, children show an increasing desire to have a say in defining the everyday customs that they encounter, and the ways customs are followed. Thus each succeeding generation in modern sociocultural groups modifies the content or enactment of customs and norms in some way. An implication for children is that effective self-regulation represents thoughtful, rather than indiscriminate, adherence to family practices and social norms. Early experiences with caretakers is not the only social factor that influences self-regulation. Cultural scripts and social expectations can also contribute to self-regulation. Parental cautions about normative standards extend beyond the immediate family to peers, neighbors, and teachers, and focus on conventions and moral values, among other topics. Teachers, neighbors, and peers also play large roles in shaping behaviors during early childhood. In many cultures, e.g.,
Cameroonian Nso, child-rearing is shared between many women in a village.
Physiological and Psychobiological Processes In addition to social learning, emotion regulation also relies on physiological resources, such as oxygen, and be influenced by physiological changes, such as fluctuations in hormones and heart rate. Negative emotions appear to require more resources than positive emotions according to many current studies. For example, regulation of negative emotions increases the need for increased oxygen consumption and ventilation, as well as causing elevated heart rate (Muraven and Baumeister, 2000; Gailliot and Baumeister, 2007; Lane et al., 2011). Although regulation of positive emotions use these resources too, they do not appear to be as physiologically taxing overall. Similarly, neurobiological studies demonstrate different brain activity in children when regulating negative emotions (Lewis et al., 2006). In particular, negative emotion regulation appears to consistently affect brain areas and processes associated with response inhibition. These brain processes appear to strengthen after early childhood, when more brain regions – such as the ventral prefrontal cortex associated with self control – become involved (Lewis et al., 2006).
Cognitive Processes of Motivation and Executive Function In recent years, studies increasingly examine executive function and conscious control over one’s own thoughts and behaviors. These are not single processes but rather composites of multiple processes, including working memory, inhibition, planning, and error correction. These processes are generally associated with the problem solving necessary for pursuits of goal-oriented behaviors (Carlson and Wang, 2007). The ability to flexibly self-regulate in order to pursue goals has been observed in young children and is considered necessary for successes later in life (e.g., Carlson, 2005; Meltzoff, 2007).
The Interrelationship between Social, Physiological, and Cognitive Processes Successful self-regulating employs a combination of adequate social, physiological, psychobiological, and cognitive processes to interact appropriately with the surrounding sociocultural environment. For example, the adaptation of social and cultural elements may not be possible without enough physiological and psychobiological resources or the proper cognitive abilities to execute the task (Blair and Diamond, 2008). Such deficits may result in poor self-regulation exhibited through behavioral problems. Despite these underlying and converging factors, self-regulation is ultimately measured by behavioral output. Whether a child is able to control his or her behaviors and comply with the pressures and demands of peers, family, and life.
Self-Regulation During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of
Many countries employ early intervention therapies and educational programs designed to address emerging problems in young children and to teach children compensatory skills for managing impulses toward dysregulation that may be caused by any number of underlying factors (Graziano et al., 2007). These programs have led to increased academic or professional success for many children. However, these programs also have normalizing effects that are not ubiquitously valued crossculturally and potentially lead to better outcomes for certain learning styles.
Self-Regulation: The Early Years The construct of self-regulation has heightened awareness of dysregulation and its long-term implications. Findings from related research point to long-standing problems when young children have difficulty with compliance, delay, and impulse control. To date, however, the developmental antecedents of these problems appear to be complex and context-dependent. However, two important developments occur in the second and third years that are key for the growth of self-regulation. These are emergent selfhood and the control of attention and consciousness. It is well known that effective norm-based behaviors require reconciliation of conflicts between self-goals and social norm demands. Among mature individuals, these conflicts are often met with reflection about courses of action, informal appraisals of costs and benefits, and plans for making reparations should they be necessary. This complex cognitive strategy is not available to young children. Understanding how very young children begin to sort through competing self and social goals may provide insights into effective paths to self-regulation. With respect to conscious learning about social norms, this almost certainly occurs, but when and how are not well understood. However, consciousness demands psychic energy, so it is in children’s best interests to sort out those family and social norms that require relatively habitual responses from those that demand additional attention or memory efforts from themselves. How children learn to differentiate and classify standards may yield understanding about strategies useful for modulating behaviors in novel norm-based contexts, and why some children falter in these situations.
Concomitant Developmental Factors The construct of self-regulation has heightened awareness of dysregulation and its long-term implications. Findings from related research point to long-standing problems when young children have difficulty with compliance, delay, and impulse control. To date, however, the developmental antecedents of these problems appear to be complex and context-dependent. However, two important developments occur in the second and third years that are key for the growth of self-regulation. These are emergent selfhood and the control of attention and consciousness. With respect to conscious learning about social norms, this almost certainly occurs, but when and how are not well understood. However, consciousness demands psychic energy,
555
so it is in children’s best interests to sort out those family and social norms that require relatively habitual responses from those that demand additional attention or memory efforts from themselves. How children learn to differentiate and classify standards may yield understanding about strategies useful for modulating behaviors in novel norm-based contexts, and why some children falter in these situations.
A Self-Regulation Developmental Trajectory Learning to deal with the norm-related requests of elders is a challenge, especially for young children who still have many cognitive and language limitations. It is not surprising that selfregulation takes years to mature into an effective process. An extensive database on topics related to self-regulation in the preschool years suggests that many additional factors contribute to self-regulation – from correlates including gender (many girls learn behavioral controls sooner than boys), temperament characteristics such as controlled attention and inhibition of motor acts, verbal skills, effective self-distraction, and competent use of strategies (Eisenberg and Fabes, 1992; Metcalfe and Mischel, 1999). The biosocial complexity of selfregulation has much room for error and compensation. Active efforts by adults to socialize children gradually dovetail with children’s growth of their own behavioral repertoire. Self-regulation gradually emerges when children understand the reasons for values and standards, possess a cognizant self, are able to suppress an immediate goal that runs counter to family norms, and voluntarily assume responsibility for their own actions across a variety of situations. This autonomous, sometimes conscious, effort to frame activities with normative values stands in contrast to early forms of compliance that do not rely on knowledge or self-awareness. Processes underlying self-regulation require some ability to adapt to new or spontaneous social contexts, expectations, and demands. Effective self-regulation is by definition an adaptive, developmental process in that children have to discover how to meet their own self needs while in general following societal standards across many settings. The task is a changing one because each age period is associated with new socialization demands imposed by family, neighbors, teachers, other individuals, and the larger social context.
See also: Affect-Regulation Motivation; Defiant Behavior During Adolescence across Cultures; Emotional Regulation; Health Self-Regulation, Motivational and Volitional Aspects of; Self-Regulated Learning: Theories, Measures, and Outcomes; Self-Regulated Learning; Self-Regulation During Adolescence: Variations Associated with Individual–Context Relations; Self-Regulation in Adulthood.
Bibliography Blair, C., Diamond, A., 2008. Biological processes in prevention and intervention: the promotion of self-regulation as a means of preventing school failure. Development and Psychopathology 20, 899–911. Carlson, S.M., 2005. Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology 28, 595–616.
556
Self-Regulation During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of
Carlson, S.M., Wang, T.S., 2007. Inhibitory control and emotion regulation in preschool children. Cognitive Development 22, 489–510. Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R.A., 1992. Emotion, regulation, and the development of social competence. In: Clark, M.S. (Ed.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology, Emotion and Social Behavior, vol. 14. Sage, Newbury Park, CA, pp. 119–150. Gailliot, M.T., Baumeister, R.F., 2007. The physiology of willpower: linking blood glucose to self-control. Personality and Social Psychology Review 11, 303–327. Goldin, P.R., McRae, K., Ramel, W., Gross, J.J., 2008. The neural bases of emotion regulation: reappraisal and suppression of negative emotion. Biological Psychiatry 63, 577–586. Graziano, P.A., Reavis, R.D., Keane, S.P., Calkins, S.D., 2007. The role of emotion regulation in children’s early academic success. Journal of School Psychology 45, 3–19. Kashdan, T.B., Barrios, V., Forsyth, J.P., Steger, M.F., 2006. Experiential avoidance as a generalized psychological vulnerability: comparisons with coping and emotion regulation strategies. Behaviour Research and Therapy 44, 1301–1320.
Lane, A.M., Wilson, M.G., Whyte, G.P., Shave, R., 2011. Physiological correlates of emotion-regulation during prolonged cycling performance. Applied Psychophysiological Biofeedback 36, 181–184. Lewis, M.D., Lamm, C., Segalowitz, S.J., Stieben, J., Zelazo, P.D., 2006. Neurophysiological correlates of emotion regulation in children and adolescents. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18, 430–443. Meltzoff, A.N., 2007. “Like me”: a foundation for social cognition. Developmental Science 10, 126–134. Metcalfe, J., Mischel, W., 1999. A hot/cool-system analysis of delay of gratification: dynamics of willpower. Psychological Review 106, 3–19. Muraven, M., Baumeister, R.F., 2000. Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin 126, 247–259. Ochsner, K.N., Gross, J.J., 2005. The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9, 242–249.
Abstract Self-regulation is a construct that represents the development of children’s abilities to follow the everyday norms and practices that are embraced by their caregivers, teachers, peers, and cultures. It is a complex and highly individualized ability that relies on multiple physiological, psychoneurobiological, and cognitive processes and is shaped by socialization and caretaker instruction. This article provides a general overview of the social history and mechanisms underlying self-regulation.
Historical and Clinical Contexts Self-regulation is a construct that represents the development of children’s abilities to follow the everyday norms and practices that are embraced by their caregivers, teachers, peers, and cultures. Self-regulation is an intrinsic part of the socialization process, especially during the formative early years of life. Most children develop self-regulation abilities by the time they are 5 years old. While young children initially have trouble with self-inhibition, they strengthen these skills while simultaneously developing control over facial and emotional expressions (Carlson, 2005). Children who do not develop these skills at a young age are at higher risk for developing behavioral disorders later in life. Although a majority of children are able to self-regulate as young as 2–3 years old, some children begin to exhibit dysregulated behaviors instead. These behaviors vary across cultures but may include resistance to requests made by adults, difficulty with routines, high levels of activity, and unfocused attention often associated with an inability ‘to wait’ or a poor temperament. The early emergence of dysregulated behaviors appear to act as a predecessor to the development of mental health issues later in life. Perhaps for this reason, the modern movement of research aiming to understand self-regulation began in the late twentieth century as clinical investigations. Previous findings, primarily from North America and Western Europe, on topics such as impulse control and resistance to discipline implicated factors such as ‘ineffective parenting,’ as well as distortions in the child’s own cognitive or language skills. With rare exceptions, few attempts were made at the time to understand antecedents, culture- or age-related correlates, and consequences of early self-regulated or dysregulated behaviors. However, as a more authoritarian and less authoritative parenting style began to emerge at the turn of the century, a more comprehensive and integrative perspective was assumed to broaden the developmental model and provide insights about multiple contributors to problematic behaviors. Family and social standards were increasingly emphasized because of their relevance for self-regulation. These studies focused on the characteristics and consequences of authoritative parenting, children’s autonomy needs, and understanding how the self-determined needs of the individual balance with the value based requirements of social–cultural groups. Such
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 21
concerns formed the foundation of early self-regulation research. Most recently, advances in physiological, cognitive, and brain-based methods have shifted this research toward an examination of multileveled explanations describing mechanisms of compliance and self-regulation. Meanwhile, the increasing cultural diversity in the populations of many of the countries prominently represented in research seem to have raised awareness of the role-differing cultural norms as well as neighborhood environments may play in developing social expectations and shaping behaviors.
Three Intertwined Definitions of Self-Regulation Self-regulation refers to the development of children’s ability to follow everyday customs and valued norms embraced and prescribed by their parents or caretakers and others. Selfregulation is a vital constituent of the socialization process. A broad construct, self-regulation encompasses a diverse set of behaviors such as compliance, the ability to delay actions when appropriate, and modulation of emotions, motor, and vocal activities as suitable to norm-based contexts. The self in selfregulation is an essential feature, and involves a sentient self – one that recognizes and understands the reasons for standards and evaluates one’s own actions in relation to others’ feelings and needs. Thus the hallmark of self-regulation is the ability to act in accordance with various family and social values in the absence of external monitors, across a variety of situations, but neither slavishly nor mindlessly. A second meaning of self-regulation refers to various physiological or psychobiological processes that function adaptively to situational demands, and often do not involve normative standards. Examples include the regulation of intensity of arousal subsequent to emotion-producing events, or the control of centrally regulated physiological and perceptual systems to novel events. Centrally regulated systems include electrodermal responses, vagal tone and heart rate, and attention control. Variation in these responses is often studied for links to temperament styles, control of arousal states, and emotion control and coping (e.g., Ochsner and Gross, 2005; Kashdan et al., 2006; Goldin et al., 2008). A third view of self-regulation comes from recent perspectives in cognitive science, which posits that motivation and
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.23168-1
553
554
Self-Regulation During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of
executive functions share roles in the cognitive processes underlying self-regulation. Here, with an emphasis on an individual’s goals and the processes that shape the person’s actions, a major role is given to the self’s role and to evaluation of gains and losses. Autonomy, control, self-integrity, and efficacy are essential in order for the individual to be effective in the pursuit of desired goals. Within the motivational framework, substantial attention is directed to understanding how adults facilitate or inhibit the child’s autonomy.
Socialization Despite changing emphases in socialization, three principles remain a constant; these have implications for the development of self-regulation. First, most sociocultural groups expect primary authority figures, such as parents and other family members, to begin the active process of socialization. These individuals actively expose older infants and toddlers to family norms and practices. Later, these socializing agents will be joined by others who typically include teachers, peers, friends, and neighbors. New socializing agents may reinforce previous norms, expand the interpretation of norms, or introduce new ones. Children are expected to adapt their behavior accordingly. Second, caretakers tend to be mindful – perhaps implicitly – of a child’s developmental capabilities, the family’s functional needs, and sociocultural standards when they teach norms. Protection of the child from harm seems to be the most salient initial child-rearing value. Then the content of caretakers’ socialization efforts progresses to other family concerns, and from there to the broader context of neighborhood, community, and societal norms. Across sociocultural groups, there are assumptions that toddlers and preschoolers will learn a few specific family and neighborhood norms, whereas school-aged children will adopt family and cultural customs and moral standards, formal laws, and economic values. Adolescents are expected to prepare themselves for social, emotional, and economic independence using as infrastructure the norms of the family and culture. The third principle is that socialization and self-regulation are adaptive, bidirectional processes. Children are not passive recipients in the socialization process. With the growth of their own cognitive skills and recognition of their own self needs, children show an increasing desire to have a say in defining the everyday customs that they encounter, and the ways customs are followed. Thus each succeeding generation in modern sociocultural groups modifies the content or enactment of customs and norms in some way. An implication for children is that effective self-regulation represents thoughtful, rather than indiscriminate, adherence to family practices and social norms. Early experiences with caretakers is not the only social factor that influences self-regulation. Cultural scripts and social expectations can also contribute to self-regulation. Parental cautions about normative standards extend beyond the immediate family to peers, neighbors, and teachers, and focus on conventions and moral values, among other topics. Teachers, neighbors, and peers also play large roles in shaping behaviors during early childhood. In many cultures, e.g.,
Cameroonian Nso, child-rearing is shared between many women in a village.
Physiological and Psychobiological Processes In addition to social learning, emotion regulation also relies on physiological resources, such as oxygen, and be influenced by physiological changes, such as fluctuations in hormones and heart rate. Negative emotions appear to require more resources than positive emotions according to many current studies. For example, regulation of negative emotions increases the need for increased oxygen consumption and ventilation, as well as causing elevated heart rate (Muraven and Baumeister, 2000; Gailliot and Baumeister, 2007; Lane et al., 2011). Although regulation of positive emotions use these resources too, they do not appear to be as physiologically taxing overall. Similarly, neurobiological studies demonstrate different brain activity in children when regulating negative emotions (Lewis et al., 2006). In particular, negative emotion regulation appears to consistently affect brain areas and processes associated with response inhibition. These brain processes appear to strengthen after early childhood, when more brain regions – such as the ventral prefrontal cortex associated with self control – become involved (Lewis et al., 2006).
Cognitive Processes of Motivation and Executive Function In recent years, studies increasingly examine executive function and conscious control over one’s own thoughts and behaviors. These are not single processes but rather composites of multiple processes, including working memory, inhibition, planning, and error correction. These processes are generally associated with the problem solving necessary for pursuits of goal-oriented behaviors (Carlson and Wang, 2007). The ability to flexibly self-regulate in order to pursue goals has been observed in young children and is considered necessary for successes later in life (e.g., Carlson, 2005; Meltzoff, 2007).
The Interrelationship between Social, Physiological, and Cognitive Processes Successful self-regulating employs a combination of adequate social, physiological, psychobiological, and cognitive processes to interact appropriately with the surrounding sociocultural environment. For example, the adaptation of social and cultural elements may not be possible without enough physiological and psychobiological resources or the proper cognitive abilities to execute the task (Blair and Diamond, 2008). Such deficits may result in poor self-regulation exhibited through behavioral problems. Despite these underlying and converging factors, self-regulation is ultimately measured by behavioral output. Whether a child is able to control his or her behaviors and comply with the pressures and demands of peers, family, and life.
Self-Regulation During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of
Many countries employ early intervention therapies and educational programs designed to address emerging problems in young children and to teach children compensatory skills for managing impulses toward dysregulation that may be caused by any number of underlying factors (Graziano et al., 2007). These programs have led to increased academic or professional success for many children. However, these programs also have normalizing effects that are not ubiquitously valued crossculturally and potentially lead to better outcomes for certain learning styles.
Self-Regulation: The Early Years The construct of self-regulation has heightened awareness of dysregulation and its long-term implications. Findings from related research point to long-standing problems when young children have difficulty with compliance, delay, and impulse control. To date, however, the developmental antecedents of these problems appear to be complex and context-dependent. However, two important developments occur in the second and third years that are key for the growth of self-regulation. These are emergent selfhood and the control of attention and consciousness. It is well known that effective norm-based behaviors require reconciliation of conflicts between self-goals and social norm demands. Among mature individuals, these conflicts are often met with reflection about courses of action, informal appraisals of costs and benefits, and plans for making reparations should they be necessary. This complex cognitive strategy is not available to young children. Understanding how very young children begin to sort through competing self and social goals may provide insights into effective paths to self-regulation. With respect to conscious learning about social norms, this almost certainly occurs, but when and how are not well understood. However, consciousness demands psychic energy, so it is in children’s best interests to sort out those family and social norms that require relatively habitual responses from those that demand additional attention or memory efforts from themselves. How children learn to differentiate and classify standards may yield understanding about strategies useful for modulating behaviors in novel norm-based contexts, and why some children falter in these situations.
Concomitant Developmental Factors The construct of self-regulation has heightened awareness of dysregulation and its long-term implications. Findings from related research point to long-standing problems when young children have difficulty with compliance, delay, and impulse control. To date, however, the developmental antecedents of these problems appear to be complex and context-dependent. However, two important developments occur in the second and third years that are key for the growth of self-regulation. These are emergent selfhood and the control of attention and consciousness. With respect to conscious learning about social norms, this almost certainly occurs, but when and how are not well understood. However, consciousness demands psychic energy,
555
so it is in children’s best interests to sort out those family and social norms that require relatively habitual responses from those that demand additional attention or memory efforts from themselves. How children learn to differentiate and classify standards may yield understanding about strategies useful for modulating behaviors in novel norm-based contexts, and why some children falter in these situations.
A Self-Regulation Developmental Trajectory Learning to deal with the norm-related requests of elders is a challenge, especially for young children who still have many cognitive and language limitations. It is not surprising that selfregulation takes years to mature into an effective process. An extensive database on topics related to self-regulation in the preschool years suggests that many additional factors contribute to self-regulation – from correlates including gender (many girls learn behavioral controls sooner than boys), temperament characteristics such as controlled attention and inhibition of motor acts, verbal skills, effective self-distraction, and competent use of strategies (Eisenberg and Fabes, 1992; Metcalfe and Mischel, 1999). The biosocial complexity of selfregulation has much room for error and compensation. Active efforts by adults to socialize children gradually dovetail with children’s growth of their own behavioral repertoire. Self-regulation gradually emerges when children understand the reasons for values and standards, possess a cognizant self, are able to suppress an immediate goal that runs counter to family norms, and voluntarily assume responsibility for their own actions across a variety of situations. This autonomous, sometimes conscious, effort to frame activities with normative values stands in contrast to early forms of compliance that do not rely on knowledge or self-awareness. Processes underlying self-regulation require some ability to adapt to new or spontaneous social contexts, expectations, and demands. Effective self-regulation is by definition an adaptive, developmental process in that children have to discover how to meet their own self needs while in general following societal standards across many settings. The task is a changing one because each age period is associated with new socialization demands imposed by family, neighbors, teachers, other individuals, and the larger social context.
See also: Affect-Regulation Motivation; Defiant Behavior During Adolescence across Cultures; Emotional Regulation; Health Self-Regulation, Motivational and Volitional Aspects of; Self-Regulated Learning: Theories, Measures, and Outcomes; Self-Regulated Learning; Self-Regulation During Adolescence: Variations Associated with Individual–Context Relations; Self-Regulation in Adulthood.
Bibliography Blair, C., Diamond, A., 2008. Biological processes in prevention and intervention: the promotion of self-regulation as a means of preventing school failure. Development and Psychopathology 20, 899–911. Carlson, S.M., 2005. Developmentally sensitive measures of executive function in preschool children. Developmental Neuropsychology 28, 595–616.
556
Self-Regulation During Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of
Carlson, S.M., Wang, T.S., 2007. Inhibitory control and emotion regulation in preschool children. Cognitive Development 22, 489–510. Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R.A., 1992. Emotion, regulation, and the development of social competence. In: Clark, M.S. (Ed.), Review of Personality and Social Psychology, Emotion and Social Behavior, vol. 14. Sage, Newbury Park, CA, pp. 119–150. Gailliot, M.T., Baumeister, R.F., 2007. The physiology of willpower: linking blood glucose to self-control. Personality and Social Psychology Review 11, 303–327. Goldin, P.R., McRae, K., Ramel, W., Gross, J.J., 2008. The neural bases of emotion regulation: reappraisal and suppression of negative emotion. Biological Psychiatry 63, 577–586. Graziano, P.A., Reavis, R.D., Keane, S.P., Calkins, S.D., 2007. The role of emotion regulation in children’s early academic success. Journal of School Psychology 45, 3–19. Kashdan, T.B., Barrios, V., Forsyth, J.P., Steger, M.F., 2006. Experiential avoidance as a generalized psychological vulnerability: comparisons with coping and emotion regulation strategies. Behaviour Research and Therapy 44, 1301–1320.
Lane, A.M., Wilson, M.G., Whyte, G.P., Shave, R., 2011. Physiological correlates of emotion-regulation during prolonged cycling performance. Applied Psychophysiological Biofeedback 36, 181–184. Lewis, M.D., Lamm, C., Segalowitz, S.J., Stieben, J., Zelazo, P.D., 2006. Neurophysiological correlates of emotion regulation in children and adolescents. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18, 430–443. Meltzoff, A.N., 2007. “Like me”: a foundation for social cognition. Developmental Science 10, 126–134. Metcalfe, J., Mischel, W., 1999. A hot/cool-system analysis of delay of gratification: dynamics of willpower. Psychological Review 106, 3–19. Muraven, M., Baumeister, R.F., 2000. Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin 126, 247–259. Ochsner, K.N., Gross, J.J., 2005. The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 9, 242–249.