Project Details
Projekt
Executive Functions as basic facets of self regulation: Profiles, developmental trajectories, and relations to social information processing from middle childhood to emerging adulthood
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Birgit Elsner
Subject Area
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Term
since 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 426314138
Executive functions (EF) – as cognitive processes that enable the control of behavior, cognition and emotions – are important basic components of self regulation (SR). Both SR and EF show continued development across adolescence and into emerging adulthood, with concurrently increasing demands on autonomous and socially appropriate behavior. The overarching research goal in P_03 is to use the unique data set of the PIERYOUTH study with 5 measurement points (MP) over 13 years (age at T1: 6-10 years) to study the individual development of basal EF, complex SR and Theory of Mind (ToM) skills from middle childhood onwards, as well as their differential contributions to the development of Social Information Processing (SIP) in adolescence and emerging adulthood. The project will investigate the individual expression and developmental trajectories of three cool EFs (inhibition, working-memory updating, cognitive flexibility/set shifting) and two hot EFs (delay of gratification, affective decision making) from middle childhood (T1-T3: 6- 10, 7-11, 9-13 years) through adolescence (T4: 16-21 years) to a new 5th MP (T5: 19-24 years). Based on results from the first funding period, which identified subgroups with differential individual performance especially in the hot EF facets, the first aim is to analyze (in)stabilities of EF profile membership and trajectory classes of EF development, and to identify associated individual characteristics (e.g., age, gender, SES, processing speed). It can be assumed that the differentiation of the EF facets and the stability of profile membership reaches its peak at T4 and T5. Profiles with below-average expression of certain EF facets or with declining trajectories are interesting because the associated individual characteristics can represent risk factors for EF development. The second aim is to examine the predictive value of individual EF profiles and EF trajectory classes across childhood (T1-T3) for SIP specifics (e.g., hostile attribution bias) and their (in)stability in adolescence (T4) and emerging adulthood (T5). Because of the importance of ToM for SIP and the ongoing development of ToM during adolescence, influences of longitudinally assessed ToM skills on the developmental connections between EF and SIP can also be expected. Thirdly, the project will analyze differential influences of individual development of basal (cool and hot EF) and complex (planning ability, behavioral control, emotion regulation) SR facets on the expression and (in)stability of SIP. Thus, P_03 not only makes important contributions to the identification of individual differences in the development of EF, SR, and SIP in a highly relevant age range, but also contributes to the theoretical conceptualization of SR.
DFG Programme
Research Units
