认知与发展心理学研究室知识库

努力控制（Effortful control）要求幼儿学会克制自己的本能冲动，根据社会规范、成人的要求调节自己的情绪和行为。提高努力控制能力，是儿童早期社会化的关键任务。努力控制作为抑制优势反应、启动劣势反应的一种能力，对于儿童的良心、同情心、服从、情绪调节、学业成就、社会功能都有重要的预测作用，低水平的努力控制与学业问题、情绪问题、行为问题等正相关。努力控制对个体人格发展和适应能力具有长远影响，对于考察气质在个体上的差异，尤其是自我调控方面的差异有重要作用。因此，如何提高努力控制水平，于个体、家庭和社会都有极其重要的意义。
本研究对儿童的努力控制的发展特点、发展机制、研究方法、影响因素等进行梳理和分析，并选取136 名3-6 岁的儿童及其父母作为研究对象，开展了两项研究。研究一通过实验任务法考察3-6 岁儿童努力控制发展本身的特点，共测查了五项任务（慢走、龟兔回家、袋中玩具、搭塔、低声耳语），明确努力控制各成分发展快速期，为不同阶段侧重不同成分的训练奠定理论基础。研究二分别考察实验任务测量、父母报告的儿童努力控制与父母对儿童消极情绪回应方式的关系，探讨父母支持、非支持的回应方式与儿童努力控制的关系，希望找到通过父母转变应对儿童消极情绪回应方式来支持儿童努力控制发展的理论依据。
研究一结果表明：努力控制总分及五个任务（慢走、龟兔回家、袋中玩具、搭塔、低声耳语）年龄主效应均显著，随年龄增长而提高，慢走、龟兔回家任务3 岁组与4 岁组差异显著，袋中玩具和搭塔任务3 岁组与4 岁组、5 岁组、6 岁组差异均显著，低声耳语任务3 岁组与4 岁组、4 岁组与5 岁组差异显著；只有在龟兔回家任务中存在性别差异，男孩好于女孩；努力控制各成分年龄与性别交互作用不显著。研究二结果表明：父母对儿童消极情绪的支持性反应水平高于非支持性反应水平；仅父母报告的儿童努力控制水平与父母支持性反应显著正相关，与父母非支持性反应显著负相关；儿童年龄、父母支持性反应、父母非支持反应均进入父母报告的儿童努力控制线性回归方程，只有儿童年龄进入实验结果的儿童努力控制线性回归方程。
本研究得出以下结论：
1．儿童努力控制及努力控制各成分随年龄增长而提高，但各成分发展的快速发展期不同，放慢动作包括对大动作、精细动作的控制的快速发展期为4-5 岁，延迟满足和根据信号抑制或启动的快速发展期为3-4 岁，降低声音的快速发展期为3-5 岁；努力控制及努力控制各成分除精细动作控制外无性别差异，精细动作控制男孩好于女孩。
2．在应对儿童消极情绪时，父母支持性反应高于非支持性反应，父母支持性反应可以正向预测父母报告的儿童努力控制水平，父母非支持性反应可以负向预测父母报告的儿童努力控制水平，可以看出父母的情绪教养方式会影响到儿童的努力控制水平。
3．儿童努力控制的两种测查方式（实验任务和父母报告）存在一致性和不一致性，年龄仍然是影响儿童努力控制最主要的因素。

Effortful control is to learn to control their own instincts, to regulate their emotions and behavior based on social norms and the requirements of adult. It is the key task of early socialization of children. Effortful control, the ability to suppress a dominant response to perform a subdominant response, has an important role in the prediction of children's conscience, compassion, obedience, emotion regulation, academic achievement and social functions. Low level of effortful control is positively correlated with academic problems, emotional problems and behavioral problems. Effortful control has a long-term impact on the development of individual personality and adaption and plays an important role in examining individual differences in temperament, especially in the differences of self-regulation. So the study of how to improve effortful control is critical or the individual, family and society.
In this paper, we generalized and analyzed the developmental stage, developmental mechanism, research methods, influencing factors of children’s effortful control. We selected 136 children aged 3-6-year-old and their parents as subjects and carried out two studies. In the first study, we measured five tasks including Walk-a-line, Turtle and Rabbit, Gift-in-Bag, Tower and Whisper. We examined the rapid developmental period and gender difference of effortful control and the component of effortful control in 3-6-year-old children. In the second study, we explored the relationships between two kinds of children’s effortful control (one was measured by experimental tasks, and the other was reported by parents) and parental coping with children’s negative emotions respectively.
The first study showed: the total score of effortful control and five tasks (Walk-a-line, Turtle and Rabbit, Gift-in-Bag, Tower and Whisper) had main effect of age, that was increasing with age; gender difference was marginal significant only in Turtle and Rabbit task, that was the boys’ score was higher than girls’ in Turtle and Rabbit task; the interaction between age and gender was not significant. The second study showed: when parents coped with children’s negative emotions, parental supportive reaction was higher than non-supportive reaction; only the children's effortful control reported by parents was positively correlated with parental supportive reaction, and negatively correlated with parental non-supportive reaction; age, parental supportive reaction, and parental non-support reaction were able to predict children's effortful control reported by parents, but only children’s age was able to predict children's effortful control measured by experimental tasks.
The following conclusions were drawn in this research:
1. The effortful control competence and every component were increasing with age. But the rapid developmental speeds were different for the different components. The competence of slowing down motor activity including gross and fine motor were in 4-5-year-old, and the competence of delaying of gratification and suppressing/initiating activity to signal were in 3-4-year-old, while the competence of lowering voice was in 3-5-year-old. Boys’ performance was higher than girls’ only in the competence of fine motor.
2. When parents cope with children’s negative emotions, parental supportive reaction could positively predict parental report of children's effortful control, parental non-supportive reaction could negatively predict parental report of children's effortful control. We could see parental emotional parenting style would affect children's effortful control.
3. There were consistent and inconsistent in the children’s effortful control between the result of experimental task and parental report. And Children’s age was still the most important factor in affecting children’s effortful control.