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Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6723-2434

AccessType

Open Access Dissertation

Document Type

dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Degree Program

Psychology

Year Degree Awarded

2020

Month Degree Awarded

February

First Advisor

Kirby Deater-Deckard

Subject Categories

Developmental Psychology

Abstract

Inhibitory control (IC) has drawn great attention from researchers and practitioners and the concurrent association between family socioeconomic status and IC in adolescence is well-documented. However, little is known about whether and how family socioeconomic status influence the individual differences in the development of adolescent IC. The current investigation aimed to address this gap in knowledge by employing two multiple-wave longitudinal studies of IC. In the early adolescent sample (N = 311), color-word Stroop task performance was assessed as a measure of IC when individuals were 10 and 13 years old. In the middle adolescent sample (N = 167), multisource interference task performance and corresponding neural activities were assessed as measures of IC, annually for four years from 14 to 17 years of age. Family socioeconomic status and three dimensions of parenting behaviors were measured through informant-rating surveys in both studies. In both samples, the longitudinal development of IC was examined first. Next, the direct and indirect effects of earlier vii family socioeconomic status on the development of IC via different parenting behaviors was studied. Also, the independent and interactive associations between family socioeconomic status and several parenting behaviors in the prediction of adolescent IC were examined. Results across these two studies revealed that IC continued to improve through adolescence. In the early adolescent sample study, family socioeconomic status showed significant indirect effects on behavioral IC via its influences on parenting behaviors--especially parental warmth and parental negativity. In the middle adolescent sample study, the interactive effects of family socioeconomic status and parenting behaviors were significant in predicting neural functioning related to IC. The association between family socioeconomic status and the intercept of neural correlates of IC was significant only among families with low parental warmth, high parental rejection and low parental monitoring. The current investigation extended the prior literature in systematically testing the longitudinal associations between family socioeconomic status, parenting behaviors and the development of behavioral and neural functioning of IC during adolescence. Implications of the current study for prevention and intervention were also discussed.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/4aqb-ef50

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