Peer influences in self-regulation development and interventions in early childhood

ABSTRACT

Self-regulation facilitates healthy development and positive adaptation across the life course, and deficits are linked to negative health outcomes. Self-regulation development is thus an important target for universal prevention interventions in early childhood. A well-established research base addresses the significance of caregiver relationships and environmental supports in self-regulation development during early childhood. However, the potential influence of peers has received less attention. Emerging evidence suggests a relationship between self-regulation skills and peer interactions; yet, these processes have been underexplored in the context of early childhood interventions, and the critical question of whether early childhood social environments could be engineered to maximize self-regulation development has been unaddressed. This paper presents empirical evidence and conceptual arguments for peer influences in self-regulation development in early childhood and reviews existing self-regulation interventions with an emphasis on a potential role for peer processes. Implications for future research and universal prevention programmes and policies are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Self-regulation
• peer influences
• universal prevention

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Jon Vernick, JD, MPH (K.P.) and Tamar Mendelson, PhD (M.G.) from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health for their support and guidance during the MPH programme and capstone projects. The authors are grateful to Aleta Meyer, PhD, and Mary Bruce Webb, PhD, from the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families for their guidance during the MPH capstone (K.P.) and during the writing of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Katherine Pahigiannis is a health science policy analyst at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke where she works on neuroscience planning, policy, and evaluation activities. Dr. Pahigiannis earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Lund University in Sweden in 2007, and in 2017 earned an M.P.H. and a Graduate Certificate in Maternal and Child Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her public health work has focused on self-regulation development in early childhood and dissemination of tools to promote coregulation practices among early childhood practitioners.

Margaret Glos is a management analyst in the Rehabilitation Medicine Department of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center. Ms. Glos holds an Sc.B. in cognitive neuroscience from Brown University and an M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where her capstone work focused on support of executive function development in publicly funded preschool programs.

ORCID

Katherine Pahigiannis http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3226-2385