Murray Kathleen T, Kochanska Grazyna
Department of Psychology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville 72703-1201, USA.
J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2002 Oct;30(5):503-14. doi: 10.1023/a:1019821031523.
Effortful control, a temperamentally based ability to inhibit a dominant response and activate a subdominant response, was assessed on 3 occasions using a comprehensive, age-appropriate behavioral battery in this 4-year longitudinal study of children (N = 103) from toddlerhood to early school age. The focus was twofold: to explore the structure of effortful control in a normally developing sample and to examine the relations between effortful control and adaptive functioning. Exploratory factor analyses supported the contention that effortful control is a complex, multidimensional construct with longitudinally stable factors. Effortful control was also significantly associated with mother-reported total behavior problems in a nonlinear fashion, with lower and higher levels of effortful control contributing to higher total problem scores. These findings have implications for the assessment of temperament in children and, most importantly, for the study of nonlinear contributions of temperament to early childhood behaviors.
在这项对103名从幼儿期到学龄早期儿童的4年纵向研究中，通过一套全面且适合其年龄的行为量表，在三个时间点对努力控制进行了评估。努力控制是一种基于气质的能力，即抑制主导反应并激活次要反应。研究重点有两个方面：一是探究正常发育样本中努力控制的结构，二是检验努力控制与适应性功能之间的关系。探索性因素分析支持了这样一种观点，即努力控制是一个复杂的、多维度的结构，其因素具有纵向稳定性。努力控制还与母亲报告的总体行为问题呈非线性显著相关，努力控制水平较低和较高都会导致更高的总体问题得分。这些发现对儿童气质的评估具有启示意义，最重要的是，对气质对幼儿行为的非线性影响的研究具有启示意义。
