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Commentary: What's in a word (or words) – on the relations among self‐regulation, self‐control, executive functioning, effortful control, cognitive control, impulsivity, risk‐taking, and inhibition for developmental psychopathology – reflections on Nigg (2017)
Author(s) -
Eisenberg Nancy
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/jcpp.12707
Subject(s) - impulsivity , psychology , self control , psychopathology , cognition , executive functions , control (management) , developmental psychology , response inhibition , cognitive psychology , clinical psychology , psychiatry , management , economics
In Nigg's excellent article, he deals with a variety of complex conceptual issues related to the constructs of self‐regulation and executive functioning ( EF ). Overall, I agree that the terminology proposed by Nigg should be adopted; moreover, the conceptual distinctions he provides should help the field to move forward with regard to the understanding of varied constructs related to self‐regulation. In the spirit of further clarification, I questioned Nigg's suggestions that (a) working memory should be considered as part of the construct of top‐down regulation and (b) planning is a higher level component of EF but not part of effortful control. In addition, I discussed my perspective on the role of automaticity in defining top‐down versus bottom‐up self‐regulatory processes and the role of flexibility in top‐down self‐regulatory processes and their relation to personality resiliency.