Cognitive and emotional self-regulation predict early achievement in Chinese preschoolers

Abstract

Self-regulation, a critical predictor of multiple developmental outcomes across all stages of life, refers to a deliberate attempt to modulate, modify, or inhibit actions and reactions toward a more adaptive end (Barkley, 2004). Although self-regulation has attained extensive attention from multiple disciplines and been measured with different tasks, there is a consensus that cognitive and emotional aspects should be integrated in regulatory behaviors for individuals’ adaption to the world (McClelland, Ponitz, Messersmith, & Tominey, 2010). Nevertheless, most of the current studies are mainly focused on the exclusively ‘cool’ (cognitive) or ‘hot’ (emotional) aspects of self-regulation, but not both (Willoughby, Kupersmidt, Voegler-Lee, & Bryant, 2011). Against this background, this study considered early development of cognitive and emotional self-regulation in Chinese preschoolers and examined how they were associated with different domains of early child development. A total of 951 children (448 girls) aged three to five were recruited from 18 randomly selected kindergartens in Hong Kong. The mean age of the participants was 56.54 months (SD = 10.77). Parents reported their monthly family income and educational levels. Children’s self-regulation was assessed in individual sessions with a series of tasks tapping either cognitive or emotional self-regulation. The cognitive aspect of self-regulation was assessed with a basic (Brock et al., 2009) and self-developed advanced version of Pencil Tapping task, a simplified Tower of Hanoi task (Scholnick & Freidman, 1993), a simplified Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Kimberg, D’Esposito, & Farah, 1997), and a basic and advanced version of the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) task (Ponitz et al., 2008). The emotional aspects of self-regulation was assessed with the Gift Delay Task (Carlson & Wang, 2007) and the Forbidden Toy Task (Carlson & Wang, 2007). Children’s early development in Academic Achievement, General Knowledge, Gross Motor, and Fine Motor Development was assessed with items selected from the Hong Kong Early Child Development Scale (Rao et al., 2013) based on a Rasch analysis and the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (four items, Chow, Henderson, & Barnett, 2001). All tasks were validated in a pilot study and achieved satisfactory internal reliability (Cronbach’s alphas over .80). The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that emotional and cognitive self-regulation were two distinct but correlated aspects among Chinese preschoolers and correlations between the two aspects were larger for older children (r = .15) than for younger ones (r = .06). Children demonstrated a higher level of emotional self-regulation than cognitive self-regulation. Cognitive self-regulation significantly predicted all four domains of early child development while emotional self-regulation only significantly predicted children’s Gross Motor Development. The lack of predictive effects from emotional self-regulation in early development might be due to the lack of variation in emotional self-regulation across different age groups. Pervasive Chinese values which emphasize children’s conformity and discipline may account for the high performance of all children on emotional self-regulation. These findings suggest that cognitive and emotional self-regulation have unique influences on young Chinese children and highlight the importance of integrating cultural values in understanding their effects on early development.