Citation

Muris P, van der Pennen E, Sigmond R, Mayer B. Child Psychiatry Hum. Dev. 2008; 39(4): 455-467.

Affiliation

Institute of Psychology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, Suite T13-37, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands. muris@fsw.eur.nl

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10578-008-0101-1

PMID

18446435

PMCID

PMC2798046

Abstract

This study investigated the relation between the regulative trait of effortful control, and in particular attention control, and psychopathological symptoms in a sample of 207 non-clinical children aged 8-12 years. For this purpose, children completed self-report scales for measuring regulative traits and various types of psychopathological symptoms (i.e., anxiety, depression, and aggression) and were tested with a neuropsychological battery for measuring attention/effortful control capacity. Results indicated that self-report and performance-based measures of attention/effortful control were at best moderately correlated. Further, it was found that self-report indexes of attention/effortful control were clearly negatively related to psychopathological symptoms, which provides support for the notion that low regulation is associated with higher levels of psychopathology. Finally, the performance-based measure of attention/effortful control was not convincingly related to psychopathological symptoms.

Language: en