Self-Regulation in Adolescence: The Role of Reflection in Promoting Adolescent Self-Regulation

Executive function (EF) – the top-down, conscious control of thought, action and emotion – has been found to be highly predictive of healthy adaptation in adolescence, when many individuals assume increased responsibility for setting and managing the pursuit of their personal goals. We use a developmental social cognitive neuroscience perspective to discuss EF and its relevance to adolescent self-regulation. Specifically, we argue that EF improves as a function of developmental increases in the ability to reflect consciously on one’s own perspective and its relation to a broader context of considerations, which in turn is achieved as neural circuits connecting relevant parts of the brain adapt to the environment and change as function of specific, repeated experiences. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this view for efforts to improve EF in childhood and thereby promote self-regulation in adolescence. Running head: REFLECTION AND RULE USE IN ADOLESCENCE 3 The Role of Reflection in Promoting Adolescent Self-Regulation Research on goal pursuit (Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2011; Oettingen, 2012) has identified concrete strategies for improving goal achievement that emphasize the role of rule use in the service of goal pursuit. From this perspective, rules play an important role in representing and transforming the relation between a desired future and the current reality (Oettingen, 1999, 2012), and also in formulating specific plans for engaging in goal-directed behavior (Gollwitzer, 1999; Gollwitzer & Oettingen, 2011). Research indicates that adolescents are more successful at achieving their goals when these rule use strategies are implemented (e.g., Duckworth, Grant, Loew, Oettingen, & Gollwitzer, 2011). In this chapter, we provide a developmental social cognitive neuroscience perspective on self-regulation that focuses on the nature and development of executive function. Executive function (EF) – the top-down, conscious control of thought, action and emotion – continues to develop well into adolescence and may become increasingly important for healthy adaptation as adolescents become more responsible for setting and managing the pursuit of personal goals. An understanding of the mechanisms underlying EF and its development has the potential to inform the creation of more effective interventions for promoting self-regulation, supporting and complementing the selfregulation strategies identified by Gollwitzer, Oettingen, and colleagues. We first summarize relevant research on the protracted development of EF in childhood and adolescence and then describe a theoretical model, the Iterative Reprocessing Model, that addresses how improvements in self-reflection, mediated by the growth and refinement of neural networks involving increasingly anterior regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC), make Running head: REFLECTION AND RULE USE IN ADOLESCENCE 4 the development of EF possible. We conclude by offering suggestions for an integrative approach to enhancing self-regulation in adolescence that takes into account what is now known about neural plasticity and the neurocognitive processes involved in EF. Specifically, interventions promoting reflection suggest a promising approach that can be incorporated with other strategies to maximize goal achievement in adolescents. EF and Its Importance Across Development EF is essential for adaptive human functioning, from completing the most mundane activities to solving the most challenging problems, and a key feature of EF is keeping one’s goals and the current context clearly in mind—consciously reflecting on them. Conscious reflection, which depends on neural networks involving hierarchically arranged regions of prefrontal cortex, is required, for example, when one attempts to suppress a spontaneous emotional response out of consideration for someone’s feelings. But even the execution of relatively routine behavioral plans requires some degree of conscious reflection to avoid interference from misleading environmental cues. For example, holding a container of orange juice in hand when one is preparing a bowl of cereal for breakfast could easily lead to error if one does not maintain some awareness of the situation. Although the need for EF is present throughout childhood and across the lifespan, there are periods during which the demands placed on EF are relatively high, and during which performance on laboratory measures of EF improves relatively rapidly. During the preschool years, for example, children typically show rapidly increasing degrees of control over thought, emotion, and action, as they prepare for the transition to school, which itself places substantial new demands on EF in the context of learning and Running head: REFLECTION AND RULE USE IN ADOLESCENCE 5 cooperating with peers. It is now well documented that EF undergoes particularly rapid developmental change during this period (Zelazo et al., 2013). Similarly, adolescence is a period during which a range of new influences—both endogenous and exogenous to the individual—must be managed on the fly. For example, during the transition to adolescence, social stimuli become increasingly salient, and children become increasingly sensitive to peer approval (Nelson, Leibenluft, McClure, & Pine, 2005). At the same time, however, children are provided with new opportunities to exercise independence and take risks. In the presence of peers, choices can be biased towards risk, leading to undesirable outcomes (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005), so the need for EF is especially strong. Research also suggests that the transition to adolescence is another period during which EF develops relatively rapidly (Zelazo et al., 2013). EF development during both periods co-occurs with changes in the neural structures that support EF, and research on neural plasticity (e.g., Huttenlocher, 2002) suggests that EF and prefrontal networks develop particularly rapidly during these times precisely because this development is demanded by circumstances, and hence, EF is exercised vigorously. In sum, EF is a critical ability that develops markedly in early childhood and adolescence, likely as a result of behavioral and neural adaptation to the changing demands of the environment. By addressing the neurocognitive processes that underlie goal-directed behavior, and revealing the ways in which these processes grow through interactions with the environment, a developmental social cognitive neuroscience perspective offers clues about how best to facilitate the healthy development of EF in adolescents. In the next section, we discuss the processes underlying EF and its development. Running head: REFLECTION AND RULE USE IN ADOLESCENCE 6 The Development of EF in Early Childhood Recent research using measures of EF that are suitable for individuals aged 3 to 85 years confirms that EF improves most rapidly during the preschool period but continues to develop during adolescence and beyond (Zelazo et al., 2013). These changes in EF co-occur with substantial structural and functional changes in neural systems involving PFC (Carlson, Zelazo, & Faja, 2013). Performance on one such measure of EF, the Dimensional Change Card Sort task (DCCS) (Zelazo, 2006), is shown in Figure 1. In the DCCS, children first sort bivalent test cards (e.g., red rabbits and blue boats) according to one dimension (e.g., by shape) for several trials, and then are instructed to switch to sorting the same cards according to a new set of rules (e.g., by color). Performance on this task at this age is typically scored as the number of post-switch test cards sorted correctly. On the post-switch phase, 3-year-olds typically continue to sort the test cards according to the initial rule set, despite being informed of the new rules before every trial and demonstrating knowledge of the new rules (Zelazo, Frye, & Rapus, 1996; Zelazo, Müller, Frye, & Marcovitch, 2003). By contrast, most 4and 5-year-olds switch to the new rules. Performance on this task remains effortful, however, and while older children and adults usually maintain high levels of accuracy, they need to slow down in order to do so. Reaction time on this task decreases with increasing age until early adulthood. Running head: REFLECTION AND RULE USE IN ADOLESCENCE 7 Figure 1. Performance on the NIH Toolbox DCCS Test across age groups. Pediatric data from a cross-sectional validation study of 476 individuals, ages 3 to 85 years. Performance was indexed using a two-vector method in which individuals that achieved a high level of accuracy in the post-switch phase of the task (≥ 80% cards sorted correctly in the post-switch phase) were primarily assessed based on their reaction time, with slower RTs indicating more effort, whereas children who sorted < 80% of cards correctly were assessed based on the percentage they achieved. These measures were converted to a normalized scaled score to make comparison across the different measures possible. Error bars are +/2 standard errors. Reproduced with permission from: “NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB): measuring executive function and attention. ” by P. D. Zelazo, J. E. Anderson, J. Richler, K. Wallner-Allen, J. L. Beaumont, and S. Weintraub, 2013, National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB): Validation for children between 3 and 15 years. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, p. 27. Running head: REFLECTION AND RULE USE IN ADOLESCENCE 8 The Iterative Reprocessing Model of the Development of EF Research on EF generally supports the seminal ideas of Vygotsky (1962) and Luria (1959, 1961) concerning the importance of verbal processes in the exercise and development of self-regulation, finding, for example, that with age children increasingly use verbalization strategically to maintain task information in mind (Karbach & Kray, 2007), and that blocking the use of inner speech disrupts cognitive control in children and adults (Emerson & M