Assessing hot and cool executive functions in preschoolers: affective flexibility predicts emotion regulation

ABSTRACT

Affective flexibility (AF) is the ability to alternate between processing emotional and non-emotional information. This hot executive function has been understudied during early development. The first aim of our investigation was to generate preliminary construct validity evidence for a new measure of AF: the Emotional Flexible Item Selection Task (EM-FIST). Second, to investigate if AF represented a better predictor of preschoolers’ emotion regulation (ER) compared to, cognitive flexibility (CF). Preschoolers (N = 56; 48.2% girls) completed AF and CF measures (also working memory and inhibitory control). ER was measured through maternal report. We found evidence of EM-FIST’s validity, as an appropriate measure of AF for preschoolers, by showing that it is related to cool executive functions’ measures and to children’s ER. Both AF and maternal level of education predicted children’s ER while CF did not. Our investigation highlights a stronger relation between ER and AF in preschoolers than with CF.

KEYWORDS:

• Affective flexibility
• cool and hot executive functions
• emotion regulation
• preschoolers
• construct validity

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank all the children and parents who participated in our study. A special thanks goes to the Health Office of Maia (Maia City Hall) for supporting this research project and to Sandra Bacquart and Bruno Nogueira who collected the data. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, ECM, upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eva Costa Martins

Eva Costa Martins is a Lecturer of Psychology, and Coordinator of the Undergraduate Degree in Psychology at Maia University Institute – ISMAI. She is also a full research member of the Center for Psychology at the University of Porto, Portugal. She conducts investigations on developmental psychopathology (emotion regulation, executive functions, positive emotion, parenting and social cognition), and on group prevention programs featuring preschoolers and adolescents. Finally, she is interested in the Research Domain Criteria Initiative and in the Open Science Movement (e.g., participating in replication studies).

Oana Mărcuș

Oana Mărcuş PhD is an Assistant Professor at “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu and researcher in the Developmental Psychology Lab, Babeş-Bolyai University. Her research looks at the way in which individual differences in trait anxiety hinder cognitive flexibility performance when emotional information is being processed.

Juliana Leal

Juliana Leal holds a master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology, and has conducted research on executive functions, emotion and emotion regulation and group prevention programs featuring preschoolers. She is also a licensed psychologist exercising private practice mainly with children and adolescents.

Laura Visu-Petra

Laura Visu-Petra’s research investigates the typical and atypical development of executive functions, relevant for developing training programs and for improving academic performance in young children. Current research projects target executive functioning and emotion-cognition interactions in high-anxious children, with a focus on cognitive and emotional precursors of math anxiety (https://www.minimanx.com/research-team/laura-visu-petra-phd/). Another current research interest is the emergence and development of deceptive behavior in relation to the child’s socio-cognitive (theory of mind, executive functions) and problematic behaviour (internalizing and externalizing symptoms). She received the Early Career Award from the Stress and Anxiety Research Society and constantly serves as a reviewer for several editorial boards and research funding agencies.