TITLE:
A Psychometric Study of Cognitive Self-Regulation: Are Self-Report Questionnaires and Behavioural Tasks Measuring a Similar Construct?
AUTHORS:
Anja Waegeman, Carolyn H. Declerck, Christophe Boone
KEYWORDS:
Cognitive Self-Regulation, ATQ, TCI, Locus of Control, Time Discounting, Probabilistic Reversal Learning, Psychometrics
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.19,
December
17,
2014
ABSTRACT: Assessing
individual differences in cognitive self-regulation, an effortful process that
relies heavily on executive functions, has proven difficult in non-psychiatric
populations. We report the results of a psychometric and a behavioural study
that investigate convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of three
self-report measures of self-regulation (Adult Temperament Questionnaire,
Temperament and Character Inventory, and locus of control (LOC) scale) and two
behavioural tasks assessing impulse control and cognitive flexibility
respectively. Factor analysis in study 1 (n = 492 college students) indicates
that effortful control, persistence and self-directedness measure a similar
cognitive self-regulatory construct. Harm avoidance and novelty seeking
correlate negatively with cognitive self-regulation while intelligence is
independent of cognitive self-regulatory capacity. In study 2 (n = 78 college
students), we replicate this factor and test for correlations with behavioural
tasks. Only internal LOC correlates positively with impulse control behaviour.
We conclude that construct validity of self-reported cognitive self-regulation
is robust but that predictive validity is lacking.