Developmental Psychology

Developmental Psychology

Executive Function of Developmental Psychology

Executive function is frequently defined as the conscious cognitive control of thought, action, and emotion. Alternative definitions have also been forwarded, including executive function as a set of general-purpose control mechanisms which assists in modulating the operation of various cognitive sub processes. It is also useful in regulating the dynamics of human cognition or as component processes: inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Executive function is a functional construct, a set of processes, wherein level if competence is gauged by efficient execution. Researchers in the field of executive function have performed numerous task analyses, detailing the component processes underlying effective and efficient execution, arriving at processes such as planning, working memory, attention, flexibility, and inhibition (Aneshensel, 1992).

Development of Executive Function

The development of executive function has been intensively researched across thousands of studies, utilizing several different methods. Around 1-year-of-age, the translation of parent-child co-regulation to child self-regulation begins and rudimentary self-regulatory skills can be seen. More developed executive functions such as planning, inhibition, and flexibility appear to begin radical changes between the ages of 3 and 6 year. Moreover the development of working memory follows a similar pattern of change. Component processes of executive function develop rapidly between the ages of 3.5 and 5 years of age and continue to develop across adolescence and into early adulthood. From a developmental neuroscience perspective, the ability to recruit self control processes is dependent on the maturation of neural areas associated with self regulation, namely the lateral prefrontal cortex, areas of the superior parietal cortex, and sub cortical structures such as the basal ganglia. Increased synaptogenesis in prefrontal areas begins postnatally, and continues through early and middle childhood. This is thought to lead to peak cortical thickness as late as 7.5 years 6 of age in typically developing children (Erel & Burman, 1995).

Moreover, the experience dependent selective pruning and myelination of neural pathways associated with self control continues throughout adolescence and into early adulthood. While self-regulation in childhood is often equated with normative development in executive function, primarily in working memory, inhibitory control, planning, cognitive flexibility, and attention, in relatively “cool” or “non-emotional” contexts, a great interest has been placed on the development of a similar top-down control process in more emotional or “hot” situations as well. “Hot” executive function has traditionally been explored using tasks that require self-control in either emotionally taxing contexts (e.g., under a great deal of stress), contexts where the stimuli itself is motivationally significant (e.g., candy, chips, monetary rewards), or in the presence of stimuli that may elicit emotions (e.g., happy, sad, or neutral faces) (Falci, 2006).

Various factors of Psychology

In research with adults, self-control is often defined in terms similar to “hot” executive function, primarily as resistance to temptation in a particular motivationally significant confrontation (e.g., dieters exposed to ice cream or former smokers offered cigarettes). Inhibition arises out of socially induced constraints on behavior (e.g., the refusal to eat ice cream based on the society's values judgment of ...