Family Function And Children’s Externalizing Problem Behavior: The Moderating Role Of Executive Function

Externalizing problems are prevalent in childhood and can have continuous negative impacts on various subsequent psychosocial adaptation.It is of great importance to investigate the risk and protective factors of children’s externalizing problems in order to better intervene and prevent children’s externalizing problems.According to the organism-environment interaction model(Cummings,Davies,&Campbell,2002),the influence of environmental factors on individual adaptation is dependent on individual characteristics.Bronfenbrenner’s(1979)ecological model posited that family is the most immediate and influential part of the ecological environment for human development.A large number of empirical studies have indeed explored the relationship between various family factors and children’s externalizing problems,among which the role of family functioning cannot be ignored.Apart from family environmental factors,executive function is an individual factor that plays an important role in children’s academic,social and emotional adaptation.However,few studies to date have examined the effects of these two factors on children’s externalizing behavioral problems collectively.In addition,no studies to date have explored the role of IIV,an important indicator of executive brain function and thus a promising predictor of children’s externalizing problems,in children’s externalizing problems,or the combined effect of IIV and family factors on children’s externalizing problems.To advance extant research,this study combined laboratory assessment with questionnaire data and utilized a strict longitudinal design to investigate the moderating role of executive function(i.e.,inhibitory control and IIV)in the contemporary and longitudinal associations between family functioning and children’s externalizing problems.A convenience sample of 176 Chinese elementary school students took part in this study.They were 7.02 years old at Time 1(T1)assessment.Inhibitory control and IIV data were obtained at T1 using a child flanker task in a laboratory setting.Parents reported family functioning at T1 and children’s externalizing problems at T1 and T2.Multiple imputation was used to handle missing data and multiple regression was used for main analyses.Results indicated that accuracy of congruent trials,IIV of congruent and incongruent trials in flanker task moderated the contemporary association between family functioning and children’s externalizing problems.Specifically,high levels of family functioning predicted low levels of externalizing problems only for children with lower accuracy of congruent trials and higher IIV of congruent and incongruent trials.In addition,only IIV of congruent trials in flanker task moderated the longitudinal association between family functioning and children’s externalizing problems.Specifically,family functioning had a marginally significant negative effect on the change of children’s externalizing problems for those with lower IIV of congruent trials in flanker task,but instead had a marginally significant positive effect on the change of children’s externalizing problems for those with higher IIV of congruent trials in flanker task.The findings of the current research have important implications for the prevention and intervention of children’s externalizing problems.Prevention programs,under the guidance of organism-environment interaction model(Cummings et al.2002),on the one hand,should enhance children’s ability to cope with externalizing problems by increasing family functioning;on the other hand,the protective effect of family functioning should not be overestimated,and low levels of children’s executive(brain)function capacities need to be promoted and improved at the same time.