Hendry A, Agyapong MA, D'Souza H, Frick MA, Portugal AM, Konke LA, Cloke H, Bedford R, Smith TJ, Karmiloff-Smith A, Jones EJH, Charman T, Brocki KC. Inhibitory control and problem solving in early childhood: Exploring the burdens and benefits of high self-control.
Infant Child Dev 2022;
31:e2297. [PMID:
35983171 PMCID:
PMC9364682 DOI:
10.1002/icd.2297]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2021] [Revised: 12/11/2021] [Accepted: 12/13/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Low inhibitory control (IC) is sometimes associated with enhanced problem-solving amongst adults, yet for young children high IC is primarily framed as inherently better than low IC. Here, we explore associations between IC and performance on a novel problem-solving task, amongst 102 English 2- and 3-year-olds (Study 1) and 84 Swedish children, seen at 18-months and 4-years (Study 2). Generativity during problem-solving was negatively associated with IC, as measured by prohibition-compliance (Study 1, both ages, Study 2 longitudinally from 18-months). High parent-reported IC was associated with poorer overall problem-solving success, and greater perseveration (Study 1, 3-year-olds only). Benefits of high parent-reported IC on persistence could be accounted for by developmental level. No concurrent association was observed between problem-solving performance and IC as measured with a Delay-of-Gratification task (Study 2, concurrent associations at 4-years). We suggest that, for young children, high IC may confer burden on insight- and analytic-aspects of problem-solving.
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