Hot and cool dimensionality of executive function: Model invariance across age and maternal education in preschool children

Publication date: 4th Quarter 2019Source: Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Volume 49Author(s): Janelle J. Montroy, Emily C. Merz, Jeffrey M. Williams, Susan H. Landry, Ursula Y. Johnson, Tricia A. Zucker, Michael Assel, Heather B. Taylor, Christopher J. Lonigan, Beth M. Phillips, Jeanine Clancy-Menchetti, Marcia A. Barnes, Nancy Eisenberg, Tracy Spinrad, Carlos Valiente, Jill de Villiers, Peter de Villiers, the School Readiness Research ConsortiumAbstractThe structure of executive function (EF), as it pertains to distinct “hot” (affectively salient) and “cool” (affectively neutral) dimensions, in early childhood is not well understood. Given that the neural circuitry underlying EF may become increasingly differentiated with development and enriched experiences, EF may become more dissociable into hot and cool factors with age and advantaged socioeconomic circumstances. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to compare a multidimensional hot and cool EF model with a unidimensional model in early childhood, and to investigate model invariance across age and maternal education. Participants were 1900 children (2–5 years of age) from socioeconomically diverse families in an urban area in the southern United States. We aggregated data from four previously collected studies that included EF tasks, thus this study includes secondary data analysis. We tested model fit across (1) children older and younger than 4 years of age and (2) higher (college experience) versus...
Source: Early Childhood Research Quarterly - Category: Child Development Source Type: research