AUTHOR=Lenes Ragnhild , Gonzales Christopher R. , Størksen Ingunn , McClelland Megan M. 

TITLE=Children’s Self-Regulation in Norway and the United States: The Role of Mother’s Education and Child Gender Across Cultural Contexts

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=11

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566208

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2020.566208

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=<p>Self-regulation develops rapidly during the years before formal schooling, and it helps lay the foundation for children’s later social, academic, and educational outcomes. However, children’s self-regulation may be influenced by cultural contexts, sociodemographic factors, and characteristics of the child. The present study investigates whether children’s levels of self-regulation, as measured by the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) task, are the same in samples from Norway (<italic>M</italic><sub>age</sub> = 5.79; <italic>N</italic> = 243, 49.4% girls) and the United States (U.S.) (<italic>M</italic><sub>age</sub> = 5.65; <italic>N</italic> = 264, 50.8% girls) and whether the role of mother’s education level and child gender on children’s self-regulation differ across the two samples. Results showed that Norwegian and U.S. children had similar levels of self-regulation. Mother’s education level significantly predicted children’s self-regulation in the U.S. sample but not in the Norwegian sample, and this difference across samples was significant. Girls had a significantly higher level of self-regulation than boys in the Norwegian sample, but there were no gender differences in the U.S. sample. However, the effect of child gender on self-regulation did not differ significantly across the two samples. Results highlight the importance of cross-cultural studies of self-regulation.</p>