ArticleInfant and child development
Inhibitory control and problem solving in early childhood: Exploring the burdens and benefits of high self-control.
Article in Infant and child development. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Examining early inhibitory control and emotion regulation as predictors of childhood internalizing and externalizing problems: A longitudinal study.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Inhibitory control mediates the association between perinatal PM2.5 exposure and childhood obesity in children in the PROGRESS cohort, Mexico City.Communications medicine · 2026Article
- Family history of ADHD associates with stronger problem-solving skills amongst 2- to 3-year-olds.JCPP advances · 2025Article
- Simple Executive Function as an endophenotype of autism-ADHD, and differing associations between simple versus complex Executive Functions and autism/ADHD traits.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Inhibitory control and problem solving in early childhood: Exploring the burdens and benefits of high self-control.Infant and child developmentArticle
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Low inhibitory control (IC) is sometimes associated with enhanced problem-solving amongst adults, yet for young children high IC is primarily framed as inherently better than low IC. Here, we explore associations between IC and performance on a novel problem-solving task, amongst 102 English 2- and 3-year-olds (Study 1) and 84 Swedish children, seen at 18-months and 4-years (Study 2). Generativity during problem-solving was negatively associated with IC, as measured by prohibition-compliance (Study 1, both ages, Study 2 longitudinally from 18-months). High parent-reported IC was associated with poorer overall problem-solving success, and greater perseveration (Study 1, 3-year-olds only). Benefits of high parent-reported IC on persistence could be accounted for by developmental level. No concurrent association was observed between problem-solving performance and IC as measured with a Delay-of-Gratification task (Study 2, concurrent associations at 4-years). We suggest that, for young children, high IC may confer burden on insight- and analytic-aspects of problem-solving.
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Registered trials
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