Abstract:
Research on the development of self-regulatory abilities, and psychopathologies in which they are impaired, has long assumed that these abilities are dependent on a set of complex “executive” cognitive functions that implement distinct regulatory procedures in specific contexts (e.g., response inhibition, set shifting). As a result, these constructs are typically measured with task paradigms that are designed to selectively engage the specialized function of interest. However, several lines of work cast doubt on the idea that the functions measured by such tasks represent reliable and dissociable dimensions of individual variation. In this talk, I will argue that recent evidence from psychometric and computational modeling studies supports an alternative framework, in which cognitive processes relevant to self-regulation are not modular functions selectively engaged in specific contexts. Rather, their influence appears to be pervasive across a wide array of contexts, from relatively simple decision tasks to complex “executive” paradigms. Implications for theory and measurement in developmental research on cognition and psychopathology will be highlighted.