Effortful control, executive attention, and emotional regulation in 7–10-year-old children

In this study, self-regulation was investigated in 7- to 10-year-old children using three different measures: (1) parent and child report questionnaires measuring temperamental effortful control, (2) a conflict task assessing efficiency of executive attention, and (3) the mistaken gift paradigm assessing social smiling in response to an undesirable gift. Both efficiency in executive attention and smiling to the undesired gift increased over age. Executive attention was related to both parent-reported temperamental effortful control and smiling, suggesting links between attentional capacities, broad temperament measures, and social situations requiring attentional control.